RUDYARD  KIPLING 


UNIFORM  WITH  THIS  VOLUME. 

W.  B.  YEATS 

By  Forrest  Reid 

J.  M.  SYNGE 
By  p.  p.  Howe 

HENRY  JAMES 

By  Ford  Madox  Huefper 

HENRIK  IBSEN 

By  R.  Ellis  Roberts 

THOMAS  HARDY 

By  Lascelles  Abercrojibie 

BERNARD  SHAW 
By  p.  p.  Howe 

WALTER  PATER 
By  Edward  Thomas 

WALT  WHITMAN 

By  Basil  de  Selincourt 

SAMUEL  BUTLER 
By  Gilbert  Cannan 

A.  C.  SWINBURNE 
By  Edward  Thomas 

GEORGE  GISSING 
By  Frank  Swinnerton 

R.   L.   STEVENSON 
By  Frank  Swinnerton 

WILLIAM  MORRIS 
By  John  Drinkwater 

ROBERT  BRIDGES 

By  F.  E.  Brett  Young 

MAURICE  MAETERLINCK 
By  Una  Taylor 


R«a.dya.r(l    Kapi&ng. 


RUDYARD  KIPLING 

A  CRITICAL  STUDY 

BY 

CYRIL  FALLS 


NEW   YORK 

MITCHELL    KENNERLEY 

MCMXV 


I  V 


LILLA,  LADY  BROOKE  OF  COLEBROOKE, 

IN    TOKEN    OF   FRIENDSHIP    AND    IN 

MEMORY    OF    GREAT   KINDNESS 

I    DEDICATE    THIS    BOOK 


o>i  A  Ay^*f 


NOTE 

Mr.  Rudyard  Kipling's  works  are  published  by 
Messrs.  Macmillan  &  Co.,  Ltd.,  and  by  Messrs. 
Methuen  &  Co.,  Ltd.  Acknowledgement  is  made 
to  these  firms  for  their  very  courteous  permission 
to  reprint  many  extracts  in  this  volume. 


CONTENTS 


I.  INTRODUCTION 

II.  BIOGRAPHICAL 

-^III.  LITERARY   FOUNDATIONS 

7<  IV.  POETRY 

V.  SHORT  STORIES:    I 

VI.  SHORT   STORIES:    II 

VII.  SHORT   STORIES:    III 

,  VIII.  NOVELS 

/ 

y  JX.  STYLE 

X.  IMPERIALISM 

XI.  CONCLUSION 


PAGE 
11 

22 

43 

63 

86 

118 

135 

151 

171 

185 

204 


INTRODUCTION 

GThere  are  certain  writers  whose  place  in  the 
history  of  literature  is  not  determined  merely 
by  their  merit.  They  are  men  of  their  hour, 
men  who  voice  the  thoughts  and  aspirations  of 
their  contemporaries,  men  who  help  to  explain 
the  writers  that  go  before  and  that  follow  after. 
They  come  at  a  time  of  crisis,  and  take  their 
part  in  shaping  the  destiny  of  letters.  Byron 
in  England,  Chateaubriand  in  France  are 
typical  examples.^  They  are  foolish  people  who 
deny  Byron's  claim  to  be  a  great  poet,  but  it 
is  none  the  less  true  that  Byron  is  a  far  grander 
figure  than  the  worth  of  his  poetry  would 
warrant.  He  is  in  our  eyes  the  great  herald 
of  revolt,  the  man  who  dared  scoff  at  the  Duke 
of  Wellington  and  the  Battle  of  Waterloo. 
He  voices  the  nostalgia  of  Romanticism,  he  is 
the  mouthpiece  of  fin  de  siecle  pessimism.  This 
is  even  truer  of  Chateaubriand,  who  was  a  poor 
poet  in  the  main,  whose  Genie  du  Christian- 
isme  is  talked  of  but  never  read,  who  is  known 
to  the   modern  world  through  his  Memoires 

11 


TltJDYARt)    KIPLING 

d'Outre  Tombe  alone.  In  England  we  have  a 
steady  succession  of  such  men,  because  we 
have  alternating  periods  of  national  self-satis- 
faction and  despondency.  It  is  not  too  much 
to  say  that  the  moods  of  the  day  may  be  traced 
throughout  the  last  hundred  years  by  the  suc- 
cessive popularity  of  Byron,  Tennyson,  Wilde, 
Kipling  and  Wells. 

For  Mr.  Kipling  is  one  of  these  important 
figures,  these  milestones  on  the  long  and 
crooked  road  of  letters.  He  entered  the  literary 
world  of  the  last  twenty  years  of  the  nineteenth 
fcentury  as  forcibly  and  destructively  as  the 
/notorious  bull  in  a  china  shop.  He  did  not 
'attack  the  guardians  of  the  china  individually 
— that  was  not  his  way.  He  laughed  at  their 
designs  and  their  workmanship,  and  put  his 
foot  through  the  subtly-fashioned  and  highly 
artistic  bowls  that  were  their  chiefest  delight. 
He  did,  to  put  his  power  at  the  lowest,  more 
than  any  other  one  man  to  prepare  the  way 
Ifor  a  new  era. 
*^  It  was  a  tired  world,  very  ready  to  die,  that 
Mr.  Kipling  demolished.  It  was  the  easier  to 
kill  that  its  life  was  rather  a  reflection  of  life 
than  life  itself,  a  beautiful  mirage  set  in  an 
ugly  desert,  a  fantastic  pleasaunce  walled  in 
from  the  world.  To  deny  beauty  to  the  mirage, 
to  speak  of  this  world  as  one  of  mere  rottenness 

12 


INTRODUCTION 

and  decay  betokens  blindness  or  affectation. 
This  school  had  its  philosophy,  and  it  was  not 
a  mean  philosophy.  It  produced  Wilde's  de- 
lightful play,  The  Importance  of  Being  Earnest, 
one  of  the  finest  pure  comedies  in  modern 
English  literature  ;  his  witty  and  often  really 
wise  essays,  his  Sphinx  and  Salome.  It  pro- 
duced a  whole  sheaf  of  charming  minor  poetry, 
and  at  least  one  poet,  Mr.  Arthur  Symons, 
whose  best  work  does  not  deserve  the  adjec- 
tive. It  produced,  as  its  most  typical  flowers, 
the  pallid  women,  soaked  in  sin,  and  the  fat, 
leering  rakes  of  Aubrey  Beardsley.  And  its 
fret  and  fume,  the  fever  of  Dowson  and  the 
savagery  of  Crackanthorpe,  were  fitting  enough 
in  a  querulous  age  that  was  beginning  to  en- 
quire whether  the  glories  of  the  reign  of  Vic- 
toria the  Good  did  not  mask  too  many  things 
that  were  far  from  being  glorious.  It  was  not 
unjustly  that  Wilde  boasted  that  he  stood  in 
symbolical  relations  to  the  age  in  which  he 
lived.  Mr.  Holbrook  Jackson  in  his  brilliant 
and  stimulating  book  The  Eighteen  Nineties 
says  :  "  The  Eighteen  Nineties  were  electric 
with  new  ideas  which  strove  to  find  expression 
in  the  average  national  life."  And,  a  little 
later  :  "  Side  by  side  with  the  poseur  worked 
the  reformer,  urged  on  by  the  revolutionist." 
The  age  was  an  age  of  experiment,  a  stirring-up 

la 


RUDYARD    KIPLING 

of  a  society  intellectually  dormant.  Above  all, 
it  cried  out  for  beauty  and  beautiful  things  at 
a  time  when  English  taste  generally  was  as 
low  as  it  had  been  for  a  century  and  a  half. 
And  that  taste  it  went  very  far  to  reform. 

So  much  granted,  it  must  be  said  that  the 
aesthetic  movement  was  unoriginal,  and  that 
it  did  not  produce  one  really  great  man.  It 
borrowed  its  ideas  and  its  ideals  wholesale, 
from  the  Pre-Raphaelites,  from  Pater,  from 
the  French  Symbolistes.  Wilde  took  Salome 
from  the  far  finer  Herodiade  of  Flaubert,  The 
Picture  of  Dorian  Gray  from  the  infinitely  more 
powerful  A  Rebours  of  Huysmans.  Dowson 
imitated  Baudelaire,  while  some  of  the  most 
beautiful  poems  of  Mr.  Symons  are  gem-like 
translations,  no  whit  behind  the  originals,  of 
the  work  of  Paul  Verlaine.  Wilde,  Beardsley 
and  Dowson  would  have  been,  as  Mr.  Jackson 
remarks,  more  at  home  in  Paris  than  London. 
The  eyes  of  the  intellectuals  were  turned  to- 
ward Ireland,  upon  the  successors  of  Mangan, 
Sir  Samuel  Ferguson  and  the  young  Mr.  W.  B. 
Yeats.  The  whole  trend  of  the  period  was 
un-English. 

It  was  also  artificial.  Again  to  quote 
Mr.  Jackson  :  "It  was  a  characteristic  of  the 
decadence  not  to  sing  of  the  bloom  of  Nature 
but  the  bloom  of  cosmetics."    The  hymning  of 

14 


INTRODUCTION 

London,  of  London's  cafes  and  street  lights  and 
women  of  pleasure ;  Wilde's  ingenious  and 
amusing  theory  of  the  dependence  of  Nature 
upon  Art  were  as  much  instances  of  perversion 
as  were  the  acts  that  brought  him  to  Reading 
Gaol.  The  '  red  mouths '  its  young  men 
yearned  for  were  '  bought,'  its  flowers  were 
ever  '  parched,'  its  heroines  '  wan,'  its  boys 
'  dainty.' 

In  the  later  eighties  there  spread  bruit  of  a 
man  who  was  delighting  India  with  very  dif-  ^ 
ferent  fare.  "  Mr.  Kipling,"  said  The  Saturday 
Review,  "  is  a  new  writer,  or  a  writer  new  to  the 
EngUsh  as  distinct  from  the  Anglo-Indian 
public.  He  is  so  clever,  so  fresh  and  so  cynical 
that  he  must  be  young ;  like  other  people,  he 
will  be  kinder  to  life  when  he  has  seen  more  of 
it."  The  other  critics,  The  Times  at  their  head, 
agreed.  Here  was  no  more  obsession  with 
parched  flowers  and  delicate  sins,  no  reflection 
of  French  or  Gaelic  art.  /As  has  said  M.  Chev- 
rillon^/the  brilliant  Frenchman  who  has  made 
the  only  adequate  criticism  of  Mr.  Kipling  that 
has  yet  appeared,  and  whom  I  shall  quote  very 
often  in  the  course  of  this  study  :  "  M.  Kipling 
etait  Anglais  d'une  fa9on  simple,  violente  et,  de 
plus,  tres  nouvelle."  jThat  is  assuredly  the  most 
accurate  judgment  that  can  be,  in  one  sentence, 
passed  upon  Mr.  Kipling  and  his  early  success^ 

15 


L 


^ 


RUDYARD    KIPLING 

/_^Mr.  Kipling  was  English  to  the  core,  and  we 
were  surfeited  with  un-English  art.  He  laughed 
sometimes  at  the  English,  but  he  let  it  be 
clearly  understood  that  he  was  a  privileged 
jester  and  that  it  would  be  unseemly  for  others 
to  follow  him.  ?  He  loved  the  English  intensely 
and  he  glorified  them  mightily,  and  the  sound 
was  not  unpleasing  to  the  ears  of  men  who  had 
been  told  with  insistence  that  they  were  brutal 
and  stupid  and  ugly.  He  struck  again  that 
note  which  was  the  note  of  Nelson,  a  good 
feeling  toward  the  other  nations,  "  the  lesser 
breeds  without  the  law,"  but  a  firm  and  steady 
conviction  that  the  English  were  the  superiors 
of  all,  better  fighters,  better  rulers,  better 
lovers,  better  friends.  He  hinted — and  this  I 
shall  presently  discuss — that  they  were  the 
chosen  people  of  the  Lord. 

^Mr.  Kipling  was  violent ;  that  also  was 
welcome.^  Violence  had  wearied  Wilde  and 
his  school ;  if  they  depicted  it,  it  was  the 
violence  of  the  lover  deceived,  not  of  the  soldier 
in  action.  There  had  been,  outside  the  work 
of  the  Esthetes,  a  reign  of  prudery  so  exces- 
sive that  the  word  '  sire  '  had  been  cut  out  of 
a  Savoy  libretto  as  suggestive  of  the  stud  farm. 
There  was  a  pleasant  thrill  in  reading  the  work 
of  a  man  who  was  not  afraid  to  use  language 
such  as  real  men  used.    The  oaths  of  the  smok- 

16 


INTRODUCTION 

ing-room,  the  more  picturesque  blasphemy  of 
Tommy  Atkins  on  the  march  and  in  canteen 
were  vastly  fascinating  in  print.  And  there 
was  satisfaction  to  a  people,  of  whom  every 
year  a  greater  proportion  entered  the  factory 
and  workshop  or  sat  upon  the  office  stool,  to 
learn  that  there  were  yet  men  of  its  race  in 
whom,  out  on  the  frontiers  of  civilization, 
burned  the  old  unruly  fires. 

Above  all,  Mr.  Kipling  was  new.  He  had  the  »^ 
fortune  to  find  himself  in  possession  of  mines 
almost  virgin,  and  he  made  good  use  of  them. 
He  was  not,  of  course,  their  discoverer,  but  he 
was  the  first  who  knew  how  to  extract  the  ore.j 
The  average  Englishman,  if  he  had  no  relations 
in  the  Indian  Civil  Service,  had  the  vaguest 
possible  knowledge  of  India,  a  knowledge  based 
on  tales  of  the  Mutiny,  sentimental  modern 
novels,  and  casual  conversations  with  those 
most  uncommunicative  of  beings,  the  officers 
of  His  Majesty's  Army.  It  was  to  him,  as  was  v 
Persia,  Arabia,  or  even  Egypt,  a  hot  country 
of  palms,  and  black  men  who  wore  turbans. 
Little  he  knew  of  the  thousand  diversities  of 
race  and  type  and  creed  and  caste,  of  climate 
and  country,  of  conditions  of  life.  Scarce  better 
acquainted  was  he  with  the  white  men  who 
governed  this  bubbling  cauldron  of  nationali- 
ties, with  their  lives  and  the  lives  of  their 
B  17 


RUDYARD     KIPLING 

women-folk.  Mr.  Kipling  opened  up  to  him 
a  vast  panorama.  Here  he  gave  a  glimpse  of 
the  childless,  pleasure-seeking,  neurotic  woman 
of  Simla,  skilled  in  the  discovery  of  every  kind 
of  gratification  and  sated  with  them  all ;  here 
a  sight  of  the  lonely  official  fighting  cholera 
and  famine  in  the  plains  ;  now  for  a  moment 
he  showed  the  teeming,  packed  bazaar.  Two 
types  in  particular  he  drew  as  none  had  drawn 
them  before — the  young  British  officer  and  the 
private  soldier,  the  long-service  man  of  that 
day.  "  To  his  reader  in  his  bay-window,  after 
tea  or  after  his  eggs  and  pleasant  breakfast 
rolls,  or  on  his  return  on  Sunday  from  his 
'  decent  Anglican  service,'  "  says  M.  Chevrillon, 
"  he  taught  that  living  in  the  true  sense  meant 
living  like  the  young  English  officers  in  India 
or  Burmah,  who  at  twenty-three  years  of  age, 
beneath  a  hostile  and  fever-charged  sun,  in  a 
half-known  rebellious  country,  cut  off  with  a 
handful  of  men  in  their  charge,  command, 
decide  and,  indifferent  to  the  daily  sight  of 
corpses,  shoot  the  rebel  leader  and  the  spy." 
The  private  soldier,  with  his  simple  philosophy, 
his  language  and  his  thirst  and  his  lust  all  un- 
'  disguised,  was  a  yet  stranger  figure. 

With  each  of  these  was  the  proper  atmo- 
sphere. [Mr.  Kipling  had  a  wonderful  power  of 
suggesting  and  summoning  to  the  consciousness 

18 


INTRODUCTION 

of  his  readers  colours,  odours,  sounds.  This 
power  was  shown  in  his  earhest  books,  though 
it  has  developed  considerably  since,  and  was 
at  its  height  in  the  description  of  the  Grand 
Trunk  Road  in  Kim. J 

/Almost  all  the  critics  were  thrown  a  little  off 
their  balance  by  this  youth  of  four-and-twenty 
and  his  amazing  freshness  and  cleverness. 
Many  exhausted  early  their  vocabulary  of 
words  expressing  wonderment,  and  were  left 
tamely  to  repeat  themselves  as  each  new  work 
appeared.  The  Esthetes  sneered  a  little, 
though  Wilde  acknowledged  the  power  of  the 
new-comer  and  contented  himself  with  the  not 
unfair  gibe  that  he  had  seen  a  number  of 
curious  things  through  key-holes.  Mr.  Kipling 
took  full  revenge  later  in  a  poem  wherein  he 
laughed  at  Art  with  a  capital  A,  representing 
the  devil  as  enquiring  of  every  work  of  man's 

hands : 

It's  pretty,  but  is  it  Art  ? 

/There  was  another  form  of  attack  which  has 
not  ceased  to  this  day  ;  rather  has  it  grown 
more  bitter.  This  came  from  the  men  who 
objected  to  Mr.  Kipling's  opinions,  to  his  early 
discovered  Imperialism,  to  his  contempt  for 
certain  forms  of  humanitarianism,  to  just  that 
trace  of  brutality  which  helped  to  give  him 
his    vogue.      Such    attacks    were — and    are — 

19 


RUDYARD    KIPLING 

sometimes  masked  behind  objections  to  his 
work  on  artistic  grounds.  Of  the  more  able, 
an  article  by  the  late  Francis  Adams  in  The 
Fortnightly  Review  is  typical."!  There  was  in  it 
some  acute  and  on  the  whole  unfavourable 
criticism  of  his  early  verse,  which  would  have 
been  more  important  had  it  not  been  plain  to 
all  that  most  of  this  was  mere  clever  vers  de 
societe,  owning  many  models,  for  which  its 
author  would  probably  have  been  the  last  to 
make  high  claims.  \  But  it  was  something  more 
than  the  odium  cestheticum  that  made  Adams 
use  such  ridiculous  phrases  as  "  little-brained, 
second-rate  journalist,"  "  sickening  egotism 
and  vanities,"  which  were  dotted  about  his 
review.  This  was  merely  the  vicious  rancour 
of  the  political  controversialistj/and  of  such 
attacks,  so  far  as  I  am  aware,  l\Ir.  Kipling  has 
never  taken  the  slightest  notice. 

At  that  time  there  was  small  occasion  why 
he  should.  All  through  the  nineties,  till  it 
reached  its  height  at  the  beginning  of  the  new 
century,  was  swelling  and  mounting  that  flood 
of  Imperialism  and  national  pride  that  subsided 
so  suddenly  after  reaching  full  tide,  and  that 
is  now  perhaps  creeping  slowly  up  once  more. 
It  would  be  foolish  to  suggest  that  Mr.  Kipling 
was  responsible  for  its  rise,  but  equally  foolish 
to  deny  that  he  hastened  it.    Upon  its  waves 

20 


INTRODUCTION 

his  bark  rode  triumphant,  ^is  poems  had  a 
popularity  given  to  none  since  Tennyson's 
death  ;  his  prose  was  read  as  no  prose — not 
Stevenson's  even — had  been  read  since  the 
days  of  Dickens.  He  was  the  man  of  the  hour, 
an  acknowledged  leader  of  the  Anglo-Saxon 
race.  His  position  was  somewhat  similar  to 
that  of  M.  Maurice  Barres  in  France,  though 
precocity  and  patriotism  were  almost  the  only 
qualities  shared  by  the  two  young  men. 
M.  Chevrillon  bestowed  upon  him  a  title  which 
the  Frenchman  had  received  from  his  contem- 
poraries a  few  years  earlier,  ^e  was  the  '  Pro-  ^ 
fessor  of  Energy  '  of  the  English  peoplej 


21 


II 

BIOGRAPHICAL 

Mr.  Kipling  was  born  on  the  30th  of  Decem- 
ber, 1865.  It  is  interesting  though  perhaps 
hardly  profitable  to  enquire  how  far  India 
imprinted  itself  upon  his  mind  in  infancy ; 
whether,  had  his  removal  from  her  influence  at 
the  age  of  four  been  final,  there  would  have 
persisted  in  him  any  of  that  Eastern  fancy, 
that  love  of  bright  colours,  that  are  the  only 
un-English  traits  in  his  very  English  character. 
However  this  may  be,  the  boy  suffered  the  not 
uncommon  fate  of  the  children  of  Anglo-Indian 
parents.  He  was  brought  to  England  with  his 
younger  sister  in  1871,  and  left  in  the  charge 
of  a  relative  at  Southsea,  while  his  mother 
remained  with  his  father,  engaged  in  his  official 
duties  in  India. 

In  the  year  of  Rudyard's  birth  John  Lock- 
wood  Kipling,  a  skilful  draughtsman,  as  his 
illustrations  to  his  book  Beast  and  Man  in 
India  testify,  was  appointed  Professor  of  Archi- 
tectural Sculpture  in  the  Bombay  School  of 
Art.     He  was  for  some  years  engaged  in  the 

22 


BIOGRAPHICAL 

Central  Provinces,  making  casts  of  the  mytho- 
logical sculpture  of  the  Rock  Temples.    Later 
he  was  appointed  Curator  of  the  Government 
Museum  at  Lahore — the  '  Wonder  House  '  of 
Kim.     Beast  and  Man  in  India,  his  most  im- 
portant book,  discursive  and  formless  as  it  is, 
is  a  mine  of  information  on  all  things  Indian. 
Reading  it,   we  begin  to  feel  that  Rudyard 
Kipling's  powers  of  observation  came  to  him 
almost  inevitably.    It  also  gives  us  the  origins 
of  many  little  incidents  and  customs  that  are 
scattered  through  his  books.    One  such  custom 
reappears  in  that  horrible  story.  The  Strange 
Ride  of  Morrowbie  Jukes — the  catching  of  crows 
for  food  by  means  of  a  decoy.    Mr.  Lockwood 
Kipling  relates  how  the   Indian  gypsies   peg 
down  a  tame  crow  on  its  back,  its  legs  in  the 
air,  which  seizes  and  holds  fast  the  other  crows 
that  after  the  manner  of  their  kind  come  to 
attack  it  in  its  distress.    Directly  the  decoy  has 
fastened  its  grip  upon  the  wild  bird,  a  man  who 
has  been  in  hiding  close  at  hand  seizes  the 
latter  and  despatches  it.     Again,  in  Beast  and 
Man  in  India  are  discussed  the  native  legends 
of  the  dancing-places  of  wild  elephants  in  the 
forests  which  are  the  foundation  of  Toomai  of 
the  Elephants.    The  story  of  the  elephant  who 
refused  to   work  the   while  his   mahout   was 
absent  on  a  drinking-bout  was  drawn  from  the 

23 


RUDYARD    KIPLING 

same  source.  The  description  of  monkeys  at 
play  is  similar  to  that  in  The  Jungle  Book, 
There  are  here  and  there  instances  of  an  irony 
as  mocking  as  that  in  the  son's  stories.  It  is 
pointed  out  that  English  observers  often  attri- 
bute the  customs  and  creed  of  the  tiny,  high- 
caste  fringe  of  culture  and  philosophy  to  the 
whole  body  of  the  people  of  India.  Mr.  Lock- 
wood  Kipling's  comment  on  this  is  :  "A 
description  of  the  habits  and  beliefs  of  the 
Bench  of  Bishops  would  scarcely  be  accepted 
as  fully  representative  of  the  masses  of  Great 
Britain."  I  cannot  refrain  from  quoting  one 
delightfully  cynical  native  proverb  from  all 
this  mass  of  wit  and  wisdom  and  keen  obser- 
vation :  "  The  cat  does  not  catch  mice  for 
God." 

But  Mr.  Rudyard  Kipling  owed  to  his  father 
a  great  deal  more  than  mere  hints.  In  the 
preface  to  Life's  Handicap  it  is  written  :  "A 
few  (of  the  tales),  but  these  are  the  very  best, 
my  father  gave  me."  But  above  all  he  owed 
him  encouragement  and  good  advice,  which  is 
something  that  not  every  literary  man  can  say 
of  his  father.  In  the  dedication,  written  in 
mock  old  English,  of  his  third  book  In  Black 
and  White,  he  thus  acknowledges  the  debt : 

How  may  I  here  tell  of  that  Tender  Diligence  which 
in  my  wauerynge  and  inconftante  viages  was  in  all 

24 


BIOGRAPHICAL 

tyme  about  me  to  showe  the  Paffions  and  Occafions, 
Shifts,  Humours,  and  Sports  that  in  due  proporcion 
combinate  haue  bred  that  Rare  and  Terrible  Myltery 
the  which,  for  lacke  of  a  more  compleat  Vnderftand- 
inge,  the  Worlde  has  cauled  Man  ;  aswel  the  maner 
in  which  you  shoulde  goe  about  to  pourtraie  the  same, 
a  lytel  at  a  time  in  Feare  and  Decencie. 

Mr.  John  Lockwood  Kipling  is  spoken  of  by 
all  who  knew  him  as  a  man  of  deep  and  wide 
culture,  a  talker  witty,  cynical  and  entertaining, 
and  a  good  friend  as  well  as  a  good  companion. 
His  acquaintances  seem  to  have  been  legion, 
judging  from  the  number  of  Anglo-Indians  who 
expressed  for  him  their  affection  and  respect 
at  his  death  a  few  years  ago. 

He  married  a  Miss  Alice  Macdonald,  one  of 
three  beautiful  sisters.  The  other  two  married 
respectively  Sir  Edward  Burne-Jones  and  Sir 
Edward  Poynter.  Mr.  Kipling's  connection  by 
marriage  with  the  former  has  in  it  an  element 
of  irony,  seeing  how  much  he  has  done  to  de- 
stroy the  type  of  art  for  which  Sir  Edward 
Burne-Jones  stood.  He  dedicated  Plain  Tales 
from  the  Hills  to  his  mother,  as  "  The  wittiest 
woman  in  England."  Mr.  Kipling's  sister,  now 
Mrs.  Fleming,  is  the  author  of  two  novels,  The 
Heart  of  a  Maid  and  A  Pinchbeck  Goddess. 

Mr.  Kipling's  early  years  in  England  were 
not  happy.     They  must  have  been  very  far 

25 


RUDYARD    KIPLING 

from  happy,  terrible  even,  if  it  be  true  that 
they  formed  the  basis  of  Baa,  Baa,  Black  Sheep 
and  of  the  beginning  of  The  Light  that  Failed. 
Remorselessly  in  these  two  stories  he  has 
painted  the  pictures  of  spirited,  sensitive 
children  cowed  till  they  become  brutal,  dis- 
trusted till  they  are  in  fact  untrustworthy, 
made  to  feel  themselves  little  black  sheep.  It 
was  five  years  ere  his  parents  realized  his  un- 
happy case  and  rescued  him.  Then,  after  a 
visit  to  Paris  with  his  father  while  the  latter 
made  holiday,  he  was  sent  in  the  year  1878  to 
those  "  twelve  bleak  houses  by  the  shore  " 
that  he  has  made  famous  in  every  corner  of  the 
world,  United  Services  College,  Westward  Ho  ! 

In  this  chapter  I  am  going  to  discuss  Stalky 
and  Co.,  which  is  obviously  largely  auto- 
biographical, just  as  under  the  heading 
'  Literary  Foundations  '  I  shall  speak  of  the 
Mowgli  stories,  which  seem  to  me  to  represent 
Mr.  Kipling's  very  sdf,  his  idealism,  his  im- 
patience with  civilization  and  love  of  the 
primeval. 

'  The  best  school  story  ever  written  '  was 
the  verdict  of  enthusiasts  when  Stalky  and  Co. 
appeared.  There  were  many  who  demurred, 
but  indeed  the  title  itself  is  not  very  high  praise. 
We  are  weak  in  the  literature  of  school  life, 
perhaps  because  men  find  it  very  hard  to  recall 

26 


BIOGRAPHICAL 

in  maturity  the  sentiments,  the  conventions 
and  the  aspirations  of  youth.  Tom  Brown's 
School  Days,  which  treats  of  a  bygone  age  of 
school  existence,  the  maudlin  Eric  of  which 
Mr.  Kipling  makes  such  merciless  fun,  the 
commonplace  Godfrey  Martin,  Schoolboy,  the 
clever  Human  Boy,  and  Mr.  Vachell's  brilliant 
book  The  Hill  are  among  the  few  that  can  be 
selected  for  purposes  of  comparison.  Mr. 
Compton  Mackenzie's  Sinister  Street  is  superior 
as  a  story  to  all  but  Tom  Brown  and  The  Hill, 
ahd  in  subtlety  and  insight  excels  them,  but 
it  is  the  tale  of  a  very  exceptional  boy  and 
of  a  school  which  is  not  typical  of  the  public 
schools  of  England. 

Stalky  and  Co.  has  no  pretensions  to  being  a 
minute  study  like  Sinister  Street.  It  is  merely 
a  short  series  of  episodes,  all  taking  place  in 
the  last  two  years  of  the  stay  of  Beetle,  the 
name  under  which  Mr.  Kipling  chooses  to  pass, 
at  the  school.  Corkran,  otherwise  known  as 
'  Stalky  '  by  reason  of  his  wiles,  and  McTurk, 
the  '  scowling  Celt  with  a  fluent  tongue,'  are 
likewise  real  personages.  Stalky  became  in 
due — and  rapid — course  of  time  a  colonel  of 
Sikhs,  while  McTurk  entered  the  Indian  Tele- 
graph Service.  The  records  of  the  escapades 
and  villainies  of  these  confederates  are  cer- 
tainly amazing.     It  surely  needs  not  to  ask 

27 


RUDYARD    KIPLING 

whether  they  be  one  and  all  precisely  true. 
What  does  matter  is  that  we  have  here  the 
true  spirit  of  the  boy,  undisguised  by  the  senti- 
mentality of  middle  age.  There  are  just  one 
or  two  occasions,  notably  that  where  Stalky 
propounds  for  the  benefit  of  the  Reverend 
John  his  opinions  on  married  house-masters 
and  morality,  when  we  feel  uneasily  that  the 
Mr.  Kipling  of  thirty  is  speaking  through  the 
mouths  of  these  boys  of  sixteen.  These  occa- 
sions will  certainly  be  forgiven  by  every  reader 
who  is  not  distressed  by  the  brutality  and 
heartlessness  of  Stalky,  which  brutality  is  due 
simply  to  Mr.  Kipling's  accurate  analysis  of  the 
young  male  animal.  These  boys  are  real  boys, 
though  they  are  exceptional  boys  in  that  they 
dare  to  own  to  a  dislike  for  cricket,  which  is 
probably  shared  by  at  least  twenty  per  cent 
of  their  kind.  McTurk's  explanation  of  their 
unpopularity  with  their  house-master  may 
be  devilish,  but  it  is  also  absolutely  true  to 
type. 

"  If  we  attended  the  matches  an'  yelled  '  Well  hit, 
sir,'  an'  stood  on  one  leg  an'  grinned  every  time  Heffy 
said,  '  So  ho,  my  sons.  Is  it  thus  ?  '  an'  said,  '  Yes, 
sir,'  an'  '  No,  sir,'  an'  '  O,  sir,'  an'  '  Please,  sir,'  like  a 
lot  o'  filthy  fa-ags,  Heffy  'ud  think  no  end  of  us,"  said 
McTurk  with  a  sneer. 

Their  exploits  are  only  such  as  all  boys  plan 
28 


BIOGRAPHICAL 

and  relish.  With  real  boys,  or  let  us  say  with 
ordinary  boys,  in  ordinary  schools — and  this 
school  was  not  ordinary  by  reason  of  a  certain 
roughness  and  looseness  of  discipline — such 
exploits  are  carried  out  once  in  every  few  years 
only,  and  each  is  talked  of  with  bated  breath 
till  the  next  arrives.  Mr.  Kiphng  merely  makes 
them  occur  more  often,  and,  lest  we  should 
imagine  that  these  boys  were  demigods  or 
demidemons,  unconquerable  by  any  of  human 
kind,  he  shows  us  in  the  background  '  Prooshian 
Bates,'  that  'downy  bird,'  the  Head  Master  in 
other  words,  who  was  a  man  wiser  than  they 
all,  and  who  at  the  proper  time  meted  out  to 
them  the  proper  punishment. 

Perhaps  the  most  amusing  episode  is  that 
of  the  boys'  visit  to  Colonel  Dabney.  They 
have  obtained  permission  from  him  to  come  at 
any  time  they  like  to  his  land,  which  would 
otherwise  have  been  out  of  bounds.  They  do 
not  even  hint  at  this  permission,  and  are 
followed  by  their  house-master,  Mr.  Prout ; 
their  sworn  foe,  Mr.  King  ;  and  '  Foxy,'  the 
School  Sergeant.  There  is  a  perfectly  ludicrous 
scene  when  their  friend  the  keeper  comes  upon 
their  pursuers.  He  dashes  past  them  as  they 
lie  in  hiding  : 

"  Who'm  be  they  to  combe  bottom  for  Lard's  sake  ? 
Master' II  be  crazy,"  he  said. 

29 


RUDYARD    KIPLING 

"  Poachers  simly,"  Stalky  replied  in  the  broad 
Devon  that  was  the  boys'  langue  de  guerre. 

"  I'll  poach  'em  to  raights."  He  dropped  into  the 
funnel-like  combe,  which  presently  began  to  fill  with 
noises,  notably  King's  voice  crying,  "Go  on.  Ser- 
geant !  Leave  him  alone,  you,  sir.  He's  executing 
my  orders." 

"  Who'm  be  yeou  to  give  arders  here,  gingy 
whiskers  ?  " 

After  a  long-drawn  struggle  to  explain,  while 
the  keeper  persists  in  taking  them  for  poachers, 
they  are  brought  before  Colonel  Dabney.  This 
gentleman  is  even  hastier  than  his  servant. 
He  will  not  hear  a  word,  but  flies  at  once  into 
a  passion,  pours  upon  them  a  stream  of  invec- 
tive, and  finally  drives  them  away.  The  boys 
overhear  every  word  of  the  interview. 

In  connection  with  this  scene  it  may  be 
remarked  that  Mr.  Kipling  pictures  himself  as 
the  only  human  member  of  the  trio.  As  they 
listen  to  the  discomfiture  of  Prout,  King  and 
the  Sergeant  : 

Beetle  lay  at  full  length  on  the  turf  behind  the 
Lodge,  literally  biting  the  earth  in  spasms  of  joy. 

Stalky  kicked  him  upright.  There  was  nothing  of 
levity  about  Stalky  or  McTurk  save  a  stray  muscle 
twitching  on  the  cheek. 

McTurk  and  Stalky  are  like  Red  Indians  ; 
on  the  war-path  they  allow  no  emotions  to 

30 


BIOGRAPHICAL 

interfere  with  their  quest  of  scalps.  Elsewhere 
are  given  instances  of  this  absence  of  ordinary 
human  feelings.  Beetle  enquires,  as  he  sits 
down  in  the  study  with  some  guests  to  a  mag- 
nificent '  brew,'  as  to  whence  this  plenty  came. 
He  knew  that  the  study  was  almost  bankrupt 
at  the  time.  Stalky  informs  him  coolly  that 
the  feast  has  been  provided  out  of  the  proceeds 
of  the  pawning  of  his,  Beetle's,  watch,  and 
hands  him  the  ticket.  The  guests  listen  open- 
mouthed,  but  their  wonder  changes  to  blank 
amazement  when  Beetle  hears  of  the  transac- 
tion without  comment,  but  McTurk  is  filled 
with  rage  and  denounces  Stalky  for  his  unfair- 
ness. Last  week,  he  declares,  they  took  his 
watch  and  sold  it.    He  had  no  ticket  to  show. 

Stalky,  McTurk  and  Beetle,  who  are  all 
literary  in  their  way,  rejoicing  respectively  in 
Surtees,  Ruskin  and  Browning,  will  have  no 
traffic  with  sentiment.  The  Reverend  John, 
the  school  chaplain,  who  is  their  only  friend  in 
the  Senior  Common  Room,  asks  them  to  pre- 
vent the  bullying  of  a  little  boy  named  Clewer. 
There  is  a  half-hearted  suggestion  that  he  should 
be  made  their  study-fag  for  his  protection. 

"  No  !  "  said  McTurk  firmly.  "  He's  a  dirty  little 
brute,  and  he'd  mess  up  everything.  Besides,  we 
ain't  goin'  to  have  any  beastly  Erickin'.  D'you  want 
to  walk  about  with  your  arm  round  his  neck  ?  " 

31 


RUDYARD    KIPLING 

Thereupon  they  proceed,  by  means  of  an 
outrageous  ruse,  to  entrap  the  buUies,  and 
having  them  at  their  mercy,  to  inflict  upon 
them  with  tenfold  ferocity  the  tortures  they 
have  practised  on  Clewer. 

It  is  hatred  of  sentiment,  not  merely  on  the 
part  of  Stalky  and  Co.  but  on  that  of  the  whole 
school,  that  brings  about  the  calamity  of  The 
Flag  of  their  Country.  The  story  is  a  very  acute 
study  of  boyish  temperament ;  it  might  be  set 
before  every  pedagogue  as  an  object-lesson  of 
the  fashion  in  Avhich  youthful  shyness  and 
reticence  can  be  outraged  by  the  heavy  hands 
of  middle  age.  A  school  cadet-corps  has  just 
been  started,  accepted  with  much  doubt  by 
the  boys,  and  a  certain  Mr.  Raymond  Martin, 
M.P.,  comes  down  to  help  on  the  good  work  by 
giving  an  address  on  '  Patriotism.'  His  open- 
ing is  thus  described  : 

He  plunged  into  his  speech  with  a  long-drawn, 
rasping  "  Well,  boys,"  that,  though  they  were  not 
conscious  of  it,  set  every  young  nerve  ajar.  He  sup- 
posed they  knew- — hey  ?• — what  he  had  come  down 
for  ?  It  was  not  often  that  he  had  an  opportunity  to 
talk  to  boys.  He  supposed  that  boys  were  very  much 
the  same  kind  of  persons — some  people  thought  them 
rather  funny  persons — as  they  had  been  in  his 
youth. 

"  This  man,"  said  McTurk  with  conviction,  "  is 
the  Gadarene  Swine." 

32 


BIOGRAPHICAL 

He  makes  a  truly  dreadful  but  quite  credible 
speech,  shouting  aloud  the  things  they  guard 
in  the  secret  places  of  their  hearts  from  their 
closest  friends,  preaching  the  glories  of  service 
for  the  Empire  to  boys  ninety  per  cent  of  whom 
are  the  sons  of  soldiers.  Finally,  to  their  horror, 
he  unfurls  a  large,  staring  Union  Jack,  waves 
it  before  them,  tells  them  it  is  the  symbol  of 
their  country  on  which  none  may  look  without 
respect,  and  sits  down.  The  Head  saves  the 
situation  by  rising  swiftly  and  voicing  their 
thanks  for  a  most  enjoyable  evening  to  the 
speaker.  He  is  greeted  with  great  cheers, 
cheers  which  Mr.  Raymond  Martin  appro- 
priates to  himself.  As  the  boys  are  leaving  the 
room  a  prefect  picks  up  the  flag,  rolls  it  up, 
and  tosses  it  into  a  locker.  He  is  greeted  with 
a  volley  of  hand-clapping.  Mr.  Martin  is 
universally  execrated  in  the  dormitories  that 
night.  Stalky  finally  summing  up  all  the  abuse 
with  the  vigour  and  conciseness  peculiar  to  him. 
Mr.  Raymond  Martin  is  a  '  Jelly-bellied  Flag- 
flapper.'  His  speech  actually  breaks  up  the 
cadet-corps  which  it  was  intended  to  support. 

Mr.  Kipling,  with  that  instinct  he  has  for 
heightening  the  effect  of  a  story  by  some  slight 
half-relevant  addition,  tells  us  that  Foxy,  the 
School  Sergeant,  was  touched  to  the  heart  by 
the  incident  of  the  flag  ! 
c  33 


RUDYARD    KIPLING 

The  three  leave  school,  McTurk  for  Cooper's 
Hill,  Stalky  for  Sandhurst,  Beetle  for  India 
and  his  newspaper,  after  a  merry  episode 
related  in  The  Last  Term.  They  are  followed 
on  one  of  their  final  excursions  by  a  young 
and  conscientious  prefect,  who  believes  they 
are  breaking  bounds.  After  an  excellent  tea 
in  their  favourite  restaurant,  they  bribe  the 
daughter  of  the  house,  pretty  Mary  Yeo,  to 
step  out  and  kiss  the  prefect  as  he  passes.  He 
runs  as  for  his  life.    Says  Beetle  : 

"  Look  here.  If  he  kissed  her — which  is  our  tack 
■ — he's  a  cynically  immoral  hog,  and  his  conduct  is 
blatant  indecency.  ..." 

"  Time,  3.57  p.m.  Make  a  note  of  that.  What 
d'you  mean,  Beetle  ?  "  said  Stalky. 

"  Well  !  He's  a  truthful  little  beast.  He  may  say 
he  was  kissed." 

"  And  then  ?  " 

"  Why,  then  !  "  Beetle  capered  at  the  mere  thought 
of  it.  "  Don't  you  see  ?  The  corollary  to  the  giddy 
proposition  is  that  the  Sixth  can't  protect  'emselves 
from  outrages  an'  ravishin's.  Want  nursemaids  to 
look  after  'em  !  We've  only  got  to  whisper  that  to 
the  Coll.  Jam  for  the  Sixth  !  Jam  for  us  !  Either 
way  it's  jammy  !  " 

||  "  By  gum  !  "  said  Stalky.    "  Our  last  term's  endin' 
well  !  " 

The  last  story  dates  from  several  years  later, 
and  tells  how  Stalky  carries  into  operation  as 

34 


BIOGRAPHICAL 

a  soldier  in  India  the  principles  on  which  he 
has  worked  at  Westward  Ho  ! 

Mere  wide  circulation  is  no  test  of  a  book's 
merit.  There  are  certain  novelists  of  to-day 
whom  no  critic  with  the  slightest  courage 
hesitates  to  condemn,  though  he  knows  them 
as  the  authors  of  the  '  best  sellers  '  of  each 
successive  year.  But  when  we  find  a  book 
read  with  delight  by  all  classes,  from  the  intel- 
lectuals to  that  great  public  that  knows  naught 
of  reviews  ;  when  we  find  that  we  ourselves, 
whom  our  vanity  puts  in  the  first  category,  can 
return  to  that  book  again  and  again,  year  after 
year,  and  can  laugh  as  heartily  over  An  Un- 
savoury Interlude  at  the  fifth  as  at  the  first  time 
of  reading,  we  shall  be  very  slow  to  believe  the 
noisy  minority  who  deny  that  this  book  is  a 
brilliant  book,  a  true  book  and  a  book  that  will 
live. 

However  much  of  Stalky  and  Co.  be  fiction, 
I  cannot  but  believe  that  the  record  of  the 
Head's  relations  with  Beetle  is  true.  That 
interest  and  encouragement,  that  opening  up  of 
a  fine  library  to  a  boy  very  eager  to  read,  must 
have  greatly  influenced  Mr.  Kipling's  early 
career,  as  I  think  the  simple  Spartan  ideals  he 
learnt  from  '  Prooshian  Bates  '  influenced  the 
man  himself.  Mr.  Kipling  did  go  to  India,  and 
he  did  go  to  a  post  on  a  newspaper,  even  as  it 

35 


RUDYARD    KIPLING 

is  related  in  Stalky  and  Co.  The  town  he  went 
to  was  Lahore,  the  newspaper,  The  Civil  and 
Military  Gazette. 

Then  followed  seven  years  of  very  hard  work, 
the  first  five  on  The  Civil  and  Military  Gazette, 
the  other  two  as  Assistant-Editor  of  The  Pioneer 
at  Allahabad. 

The  then  Editor  of  The  Civil  and  Military 
Gazette  has  said  of  Mr.  Kipling  :  "  If  you  want 
to  find  a  man  who  will  cheerfully  do  the  work 
of  three  men,  you  should  catch  a  young  genius." 
He  goes  on  to  compare  a  young  genius  thus 
employed  to  a  blood  horse  in  a  wagon.  He 
may  not  have  the  strength  of  a  draught-horse, 
but  he  has  more  spirit.  He  will  pull  his  load 
uphill  or  kill  himself  in  the  attempt. 

Throughout  these  seven  years  Mr.  Kipling 
was  contributing  poems,  short  stories  and 
miscellaneous  articles  to  the  newspapers  with 
which  he  was  connected.  At  first  he  seems  to 
have  been  permitted  to  do  this  rather  as  a 
favour,  but  by  1886,  when  he  was  but  twenty, 
his  name  was  widely  known  in  India.  Depart- 
mental Ditties,  published  by  himself,  brought 
his  first  fame  ;  In  Black  and  White  established 
it.  In  1889  he  was  sent  by  The  Pioneer  on  a 
leisurely  journey  through  India,  and  by  way 
of  Japan,  San  Francisco  and  New  York  to 
England.     His  contributions  to  The  Pioneer 

36 


BIOGRAPHICAL 

were  published  as  Letters  of  Marque  and  From 
Sea  to  Sea.  In  1890  appeared  Plain  Tales  from 
the  Hills  and  The  Light  that  Failed.  Mr.  Kipling 
was  the  literary  lion  of  the  moment.  The 
Times  review  before-mentioned  had  set  the 
seal  on  his  fame.  He  was  inundated  with  invi- 
tations, courted,  flattered  and  feted.  He 
accepted  it  all  with  philosophy,  as  unruffled 
by  success  as  he  had  been  by  early  hard  work, 
and  doubtless  enjoyed  himself  vastly.  In  1891 
he  set  off  on  a  great  tour,  visiting  South  Africa, 
Ceylon,  Australia  and  New  Zealand.  That 
year  Life's  Handicap,  one  of  the  best  of  all  his 
collections  of  short  stories,  had  birth. 

1892  was  a  year  of  great  importance.  On 
January  the  18th  he  married  Miss  Caroline 
Balestier,  sister  of  his  friend  Wolcott  Balestier, 
in  collaboration  with  whom  he  had  written  the 
Naidahka.  In  April  was  published  Barrack 
Room  Ballads. 

Mr.  Kipling's  honeymoon  was  spent  on  a 
world  tour.  When  in  the  East  he  planned  a 
visit  to  Robert  Louis  Stevenson  at  Samoa. 
For  some  reason — a  biographer  declares  be- 
cause of  the  failure  of  the  Oriental  Bank — he 
was  unable  to  make  the  voyage.  He  never 
met  the  man  whom  he  admired  so  much  that 
to  a  French  critic  he  spoke  of  him  as  '  my 
master.' 

37 


RUDYARD     KIPLING 

Mr.  and  Mrs.  Kipling  now  settled  at  Brattle- 
boro',  Vermont,  living  at  first  in  a  cottage  on 
the  Balestier  estate.  He  built,  largely  with  his 
own  hands,  a  wooden  house,  christened  '  The 
Naulahka,'  where  he  and  his  wife  lived  about 
four  years.  Here  he  wrote  Captains  Courageous, 
which  had  a  very  great  success,  and  many 
poems  and  short  stories,  including  those  in  The 
Jungle  Books.  The  last  were  published  in  1894 
and  1895  respectively.  Three  children  were 
born  of  the  marriage,  of  whom  two,  a  boy  and 
a  girl,  survive. 

In  1896  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Kiphng  returned  to 
England,  and  in  1898  went  to  live  at  Rotting- 
dean  and  subsequently  moved  to  Burwash. 
Since  then  their  life  has  been  uneventful,  a 
striking  contrast  to  that  which  Mr.  Kipling  had 
lived  so  far.  He  seems  to  have  grown  more 
and  more  in  love  with  loneliness,  and  in  his 
later  stories  we  find  that  the  beauties  of  the 
English  countryside  take  some  of  the  place 
in  his  heart  hitherto  given  to  India  and  the 
glories  of  the  Empire.  He  yet  makes  occasional 
excursions,  and  was  for  some  time  in  South 
Africa  during  the  war.  In  1899  he  underwent 
a  very  serious  illness  in  New  York,  when  the 
public  of  England  and  America  waited  for 
bulletins  with  an  anxiety  that  it  would  scarcely 
have  shown  for  any  other  living  man.     The 

38 


BIOGRAPHICAL 

German  Emperor  telegraphed  to  Mrs.  Kipling 
for  news  of  the  invalid's  progress. 

Even  while  he  was  creeping  back  to  his 
strength  his  daughter  Josephine,  then  six 
years  old,  died  very  suddenly  from  the  pneu- 
monia that  had  passed  from  him.  For  long 
none  dared  tell  him  of  his  loss,  and  the  blow 
was  the  bitterest  of  his  life.  He  has  said 
himself :  "  People  say  that  that  kind  of 
wound  heals.  It  doesn't.  It  only  skins 
over." 

In  1907  the  Swedish  Academy  awarded  him 
the  Nobel  Prize  of  Literature.  There  was, 
inevitably,  an  outcry  in  the  same  quarters 
whence  had  come  the  semi-political  criticism 
of  his  work  that  I  have  already  mentioned. 
Letters  poured  into  the  Press,  full  of  enumera- 
tions of  his  faults,  real  and  imaginary  ;  full 
also  of  suggestions,  not  in  the  best  of  taste, 
that  certain  other  writers  had  better  deserved 
the  honour.  The  mass  of  reading  Englishmen, 
however,  were  well  content  to  leave  politics 
out  of  the  question,  and  accepted  the  award 
with  satisfaction.  Abroad  it  was  equally  well 
received.  His  reputation  in  Europe  was  by 
this  time  far  greater  even  than  in  his  own 
country  ;  it  is  now  almost  as  wide  as  that  of 
Richardson,  Sterne  or  Byron.  There  is  scarce 
a  European  language  into  which  some  of  his 

39 


RUDYARD    KIPLING 

works  have  not  been  translated.  The  paper 
of  M.  Chevrillon  had  appeared  in  his  excellent 
book  Etudes  Anglaises  in  1901,  and  had  marked 
the  commencement  of  his  vogue  in  France.  A 
Swedish  Professor,  Dr.  Leeb-Lundberg,  has 
written  a  painstaking  little  study  called  Word- 
Formation  in  Kipling,  and  the  Fatherland, 
amazingly  scientific  as  ever,  has  given  us  Herr 
Loewe's  Beitrage  zur  Metrik  Rudyard  Kipling's, 
which  appeared  in  the  series  Marburger  Studien 
zur  englischen  Philologie.  There  have  been 
other  studies  in  languages  with  which  I  am. 
unacquainted,  while  the  critics  of  the  United 
States  have  naturally  had  a  good  deal  to  say 
on  the  work  of  the  man  who  lived  for  four  years 
among  them  and  who  has  depicted  their 
countrymen  so  often.  No  book  great  in  bulk 
has  yet  been  written  about  Mr.  Kipling,  and 
we  shall  probably  have  long  to  wait  ere  it  will 
be  possible  definitely  to  assign  to  him  his  place 
in  literature. 

Since  the  beginning  of  the  century  Mr, 
Kipling's  muses,  both  Euterpe  and  Thalia, 
have  been  less  prolific.  There  are  who  declare 
that  they  are  barren,  that  Mr.  Kipling  is 
'  written  out.'  Such  a  statement  it  is  im- 
possible to  deny  or  to  affirm.  It  may  be  that 
the  old  days  when  subjects  came  so  easily  that 
it  was  necessary  to  check  his  own  exuberance 

40 


BIOGRAPHICAL 

are  gone  for  ever.  In  these  days  we  were  always 
coming  upon  the  famous  :  "  But  that  is 
another  story,"  or  some  phrase  such  as  : 
"  Later  on,  I  will  tell  you  of  a  case  something 
like  this,  but  with  all  the  jest  left  out,  and 
nothing  in  it  but  real  trouble . "  I  shall  presently 
strive  to  show  cause  for  my  belief  that  in  the 
quality  of  Mr.  Kipling's  latest  work  there  has 
been  little  or  no  decline,  but  the  fact  remains 
that  we  have  had  from  him  no  book  since 
Rewards  and  Fairies,  and  that  for  some  years, 
save  for  an  occasional  poem  in  The  Morning 
Post,  he  has  been  silent  altogether.  It  may  be 
that  he  is  enjoying  a  period  of  complete  laziness 
to  which  none  can  be  better  entitled  than  he, 
and  that  after  he  has  let  lie  fallow  his  mind  for 
a  few  years  there  will  be  a  renewal  of  produc- 
tive energy.  It  is  not  too  much  to  hope,  for 
Mr.  Kipling  is  not  yet  fifty. 

Of  late  years  he  has  taken  some  part  in 
politics,  speaking  for  the  National  Service 
League,  writing  poems  for  the  cause  of  the 
Union.  He  recently  made  a  much  discussed 
and  somewhat  violent  attack  upon  the  Liberal 
Government  then  in  power.  He  also  delivered 
not  long  ago  to  the  Royal  Geographical  Society 
a  most  brilliant  address,  wherein  his  descrip- 
tion of  the  smells  that  the  explorer  and  traveller 
associates  with  his  different  routes  and  dif- 

41 


RUDYARD    KIPLING 

ferent  goals  was  equal  to  anything  in  his 
stories.  He  is,  it  may  be,  less  talked  of  than  a 
few  years  ago,  but  the  constant  reissue  of  his 
books  in  various  forms  shows  that  his  popu- 
larity stands  as  high  as  ever. 


42 


Ill 

LITERARY    FOUNDATIONS 

The  soul  of  Mr.  Kipling,  no  less  than  his  body, 
was  born  in  India.  India  with  her  glaring 
colours,  her  quivering  heats,  her  thirsts,  her 
cruelties,  stamped  herself  deep  upon  his  spirit. 
The  personal  pronoun  that  is  given  to  countries 
is  warranted  here,  for  to  him  India  was  indeed 
one  monstrous  sentient  being,  restless  and  be- 
wildering, never  completely  to  be  understood. 

He  saw  her  all 

smoke  and  flame 
From  Simla  to  the  haze  below. 

The  white  man  who  ruled  her  could  do  no  more 
than  work,  and  pray  that  his  work  would  serve  ; 
never  could  he  have  any  certainty  that  it 
would.  The  warning  given  to  Lord  Lansdowne 
by  Lord  Dufferin  in  One  Viceroy  Resigns  was 
for  every  official  in  India  as  well  as  the  head  of 
them  all. 

Accept  on  trust  and  work  in  darkness,  strike 
At  venture,  stumble  forward,  make  your  mark, 
(It's  chalk  on  granite)  then  thank  God  no  flame 
Leaps  from  the  rock  to  shrivel  mark  and  man. 
43 


RUDYARD     KIPLING 

He  was  fascinated  by  the  '  terror  by  night ' 
that  slept  never,  howso  peaceful  might  seem 
the  land.  There  was  a  curious  delight  in  pry- 
ing into  horrors  that  it  is  not  well  for  the  eyes 
of  man  to  see. 

There  is  a  famous  French  author  whose 
vision  has  likewise  been  turned  to  the  East,  to 
whom  the  same  sights  and  smells  have  been  an 
inspiration.  It  is  interesting  to  compare  Mr. 
Kipling  with  M.  Pierre  Loti,  particularly  as  the 
latter  has  in  Mon  Frere  Yves  attempted  a  study 
of  the  life  and  emotions  of  the  bluejacket  in 
the  French  navy.  But,  just  as  Yves  is  quite 
another  person  than  Mulvaney,  so  their  creators 
are  very  far  apart.  M.  Loti  lets  the  sensuous 
side  of  the  East  permeate  him.  Its  languors 
and  its  luxuries  twine  themselves  about  him 
and  twist  his  style  to  their  own  softness.  Mr. 
Kipling  looks  upon  these  things  and  feels  their 
influence  and  writes  of  them.  But  he  writes  as 
a  European,  as  an  Englishman.  He  can  under- 
stand the  native,  but  he  rarely  speaks  of  him 
as  if  his  point  of  view  were  best — never  unless 
that  native  be  of  one  of  the  warrior  peoples  of 
the  North.  He  can  admire  the  fatalistic  philos- 
ophy that  declares  that  all  will  happen  as  it 
has  been  decreed,  but  he  does  not  order  his 
affairs,  and  waxes  exceeding  wroth  when  he 
thinks  that  his  country  is  ordering  her  affairs, 
on  any  such  principle. 

44 


LITERARY    FOUNDATIONS 

For  the  cause  of  this  we  must  look  to  his 
most  strongly  marked  characteristic.  It  is  his 
energy.  Energy  clothes  him  like  a  garment ;  ! 
in  M.  Chevrillon's  words  "  it  nourishes  and 
directs  all  his  art."  He  glorifies  the  man  of  '-^ 
action  above  all  men.  His  own  craft  he  seems 
to  despise,  and  I  am  perfectly  certain  that  had 
he  been  given  the  choice  of  assisting  in  the 
taking  of  Lungtungpen  or  describing  it,  as  he 
has,  in  one  of  the  best  short  stories  ever  written, 
he  would  have  desired  the  former.  The  late 
Professor  Dowden  recorded  in  a  recently  pub- 
lished letter  that  at  the  last  Home  Rule  crisis 
he  wrote  to  him,  with  Swinburne  and  Mr. 
William  Watson,  asking  for  songs  for  Unionists 
in  Ireland.  Mr.  Kipling  replied  that  if  one 
came  to  him  he  would  send  it,  but  that  in  his 
opinion  Irish  Unionists  "  needed  drilling  a 
damned  sight  more  than  doggerel."  That  is 
a  sentiment  most  typical  of  the  man.  When 
Irish  Unionists  took  his  advice  and  drilled,  he 
was  inspired  by  them  to  write  poems  in  their 
honour.  What  he  loves  in  England  and  her 
history  is  her  restless  energy.  He  delights  in 
her  violent  aggression  of  early  times.  He 
would  not  dream  of  denying  that  the  exploits 
of  Hawkins  and  Drake  were  the  merest  piracy, 
but  the  record  of  them  warms  his  blood  not 
the  less  for  that.    In  her  soberer  days  he  ad- 

45  >.^- 


RUDYARD     KIPLING 

mires  the  cool,  steady  arrogance  wherewith 
she  supports  her  claims. 

^*>j  What  it  is  plain  to  see  he  dreads  for  England 
is  that  her  ever-swelling  cities  with  their  smoke 
and  foul  air  should  breed — as  no  observer  can 
doubt  they  are  breeding — a  race  less  steady 
even  if  more  intelligent,  less  purposeful,  less 
patriotic,  given  to  v  ain  cries  speedily  forgotten, 
calling  only,  when  its  toil  is  over,  for  corn 
and  circuses.  It  is  when  he  imagines  he  sees 
traces  of  such  things  that  his  love  is  changed 
to  anger  against  his  country,  that  she  seems 
"  built  of  putty,  brass  and  paint,"  that  he 
attacks  her  with  the  scathing  reproof  of  The 
Islanders. 

^  It  is  this  energy  that  accounts  for  the  small 
part  that  women  play  in  his  work.  Like  his 
favourite  hero,  the  '  Brushwood  Boy,'  he 
wants  to  play  his  game  without  "  petticoats 
in  the  court."  I  say  this  despite  my  belief 
that  much  nonsense  has  been  talked  as  to  his 
attitude  to  women,  but  that  I  shall  discuss 
later  on.  One  point  in  this  connection  may, 
however,  now  be  noticed.  In  their  book  on 
him  Messrs.  G.  F.  Monkswood  and  George 
Gamble  say  :  "  I  have  never  met  a  woman  that 
was  a  Kiplingite,  and  I  should  not  have  be- 
lieved it  if  I  had.  The  writings  of  Rudyard 
Kipling  do  not  appeal  to  women,  perhaps  be- 

46 


LITERARY    FOUNDATIONS 

cause  they  are  not  intended  so  to  do."  My 
own  experience  has  been  precisely  the  contrary. 
The  two  warmest  admirers  of  his  work,  one  of 
his  short  stories,  the  other  of  his  poetry,  that  I 
have  met  were  women,  and  I  have  known 
others  almost  equally  enthusiastic.  I  believe 
that  it  is  his  very  energy  and  violence  that 
appeals  to  them.  Certainly  I  remember  that 
the  poetry-lover,  an  actress,  who  at  the  slightest 
provocation  would  stand  on  the  hearth-rug  and 
recite  for  an  hour  on  end,  had  a  partiality  for 
The  Ballad  of  Fisher''s  Boar  ding-House  and 
The  Truce  of  the  Bear, 

It  is,  I  am  convinced,  energy  also  that  makes 
him  suspicious  of  and  impatient  with  civiliza- 
tion. He  sees  clearly  the  savage  in  every  man, 
the  savage  beneath  every  system,  and  he  asks 
if  this  civilization,  admittedly  a  veneer,  be 
worth  while.  I  do  not  mean  by  this  that  he 
suggests,  or  ever  would  suggest,  seriously  that 
we  should  abandon  it,  even  if  we  could.  But 
I  believe  he  experiences  vague  longings  for 
primeval  things,  vague  desires  to  be  rid  of 
complications,  to  be  in  a  world  altogether  lower 
in  intelligence  but  simpler  and  more  natural. 
And  I  believe  that  it  is  these  feelings  that  were 
the  seed  from  which  sprung  the  stories  of 
Mowgli. 

These  tales  of  a  new  Romulus  suckled  in  a 
47 


i^ 


RUDYARD    KIPLING 

she-wolf's  litter,  of  a  creature  at  once  man- 
wolf  and  god-man,  are  unique  in  literature. 
The  nearest  approach  to  an  ancestor  was  Paul 
et  Virginie.  The  bloom  of  their  charm,  at 
least,  whatever  be  the  fate  of  Mr.  Kipling  and 
his  works,  will  never  fade.  It  has  been  given 
to  their  author,  as  to  not  more  than  a  few 
dozen  men  in  all  the  long  roll  of  literature,  to 
invent  a  new  form  of  expression,  to  employ  a 
new  convention.  Mowgli,  the  "  wise  little 
frog,"  as  the  beasts  call  him,  who  makes  him- 
self king  of  the  jungle,  is  not  only  a  most  beau- 
tiful character  but  a  type  that  has  stamped 
itself  upon  the  minds  of  men,  that  has  taken  a 
definite  and  permanent  place  in  English  letters. 
And  the  marvellous  knowledge,  the  deftness 
in  imparting  it,  the  boldness  of  imagination  in 
these  stories,  cause  new  wonder  with  every 
new  hour  of  study.  When  we  read  of  the  lives 
of  the  animals,  of  their  customs,  their  laws, 
their  speech,  we  say  to  ourselves  not  that  such 
they  may  possibly  be,  but,  in  the  heat  of  our 
enthusiasm,  that  so  they  inevitably  are.  They 
have  a  third  quality.  They  are  not  only  the 
outpouring  of  their  author's  most  intimate 
spirit,  the  results  of  his  search  for  an  ideal 
man,  not  only  the  most  daring  picture  of  the 
life  of  animals  ever  drawn,  but  they  are,  as 
The  Spectator  said  of  them,  "written  by  a 

48 


LITERARY    FOUNDATIONS 

master  in  allegory  of  a  much  higher  kind  than 
any  which  i3Esop  ever  produced." 

Take  as  an  instance  of  Mr.  Kipling's  bold- 
ness the  following  passage  from  The  Jungle 
Book.  I  think  we  are — or  were  till  this  was 
written — inclined  to  credit  the  monkey  with 
being  the  most  intelligent  of  beasts.  Yet  in 
the  jungle  he  is,  we  are  told,  despised  utterly. 
And  the  reasons  given  are,  when  we  regard 
them,  very  sound  indeed.  Monkeys  are  per- 
haps too  highly  developed  ;  they  play  at  being 
men,  but  they  cannot  keep  to  any  purpose. 
They  have  no  system  of  life  like  the  other  in- 
habitants of  the  jungle.  Baloo,  the  old  bear, 
who  is  the  boy  Mowgli's  tutor,  reproving  him 
for  playing  with  the  monkeys,  gives  the 
reason  why  the  jungle  scorns  them. 

"  Listen,  man-cub,"  said  the  Bear,  and  his  voice 
rumbled  like  thunder  on  a  hot  night.  "  I  have  taught 
thee  all  the  Law  of  the  Jungle  for  all  the  peoples  of 
the  jungle — except  the  Monkey-Folk  who  live  in  the 
trees.  They  have  no  law.  They  are  outcaste.  They 
have  no  speech  of  their  own,  but  use  the  stolen  words 
which  they  overhear  when  they  listen,  and  peep,  and 
wait  up  above  in  the  branches.  Their  way  is  not  our 
way.  They  are  without  leaders.  They  have  no  re- 
membrance. They  boast  and  chatter  and  pretend 
that  they  are  a  great  people  about  to  do  great  affairs 
in  the  jungle,  but  the  falling  of  a  nut  turns  their  minds 
to  laughter,  and  all  is  forgotten.  We  of  the  jungle 
have  no  dealings  with  them." 
D  49 


RUDYARD    KIPLING 

In  a  passage  which  seems  to  have  carried 
conviction  to  the  heart  of  an  Edinburgh 
reviewer,  he  suggests  that  danger  may  be  as 
thriUing  to  animals  as  it  sometimes  is  to  man. 

To  move  down  so  cunningly  that  never  a  leaf 
stirred  ;  to  wade  knee-deep  in  the  roaring  shallows 
that  drown  all  noise  from  behind  ;  to  drink,  looking 
backward  over  one's  shoulder,  every  muscle  ready 
for  the  first  desperate  bound  of  keen  terror  ;  to  roll 
on  the  sandy  margin  and  return,  wet-muzzled  and 
well  plumped  out,  to  the  admiring  herd,  was  a  thing 
that  all  glossy-horned  young  bucks  took  a  delight  in, 
precisely  because  they  knew  that  at  any  moment 
Bagheera  or  Shere  Khan  might  leap  upon  them  and 
bear  them  down. 

The  first  story  of  Mowgli  is  not  in  either  of 
the  original  Jungle  Books,  but  appeared  in 
Many  Inventions.  It  is  called  In  the  Rukh,  and 
introduces  Mowgli,  a  man  full-grown,  after  he 
has  been  cast  forth  from  the  jungle.  But 
somehow  Mowgli,  his  face  "  that  of  an  angel 
strayed  among  the  woods,"  has  not  the  same 
glamour  in  contact  with  white  men  as  with  his 
wolf-brethren  and  Bagheera  the  black  panther. 
His  world  is  the  ideal  world  of  fantasy,  not  a 
world  that  holds  officials  of  the  Indian  Woods 
and  Forests  Department  or  Mohammedan  but- 
lers and  their  beautiful  daughters.  And  this, 
even  though  the  tale  of  a  human  infant  suckled 
by  wild  beasts  is,  if  we  can  believe  the  peasants 

50 


LITERARY    FOUNDATIONS 

of  jungle  villages,  less  improbable  than  it  may 
sound. 

It  is  curious  that  while  I  was  engaged  upon 
this  chapter  there  should  have  appeared  in  The 
Irish  Times  of  July  the  27th,  1914,  a  leading 
article  on  this  very  subject,  under  the  heading 
'  A  Jungle  Story.'  It  may  be  of  interest, 
though  I  do  not  consider  that  it  matters  very 
greatly  whether  or  not  there  could  possibly 
have  existed  such  a  creature  as  Mowgli.  This 
newspaper,  which  is  by  no  means  "  flighty," 
says  : 

"  A  story  comes  from  India,  apparently  on  ^^ 
good  authority,  which  shows  that  the  tale  of 
Mowgli  is  not  entirely  fantastic.  A  wild 
creature,  found  in  the  jungle,  has  turned  out 
to  be  a  human  child — a  girl.  She  is  almost 
unrecognisable  as  such,  since  hair  has  grown 
on  both  sides  of  her  face  and  her  spine,  but 
vaccination  marks  have  been  found  on  her 
arms,  so  that  there  can  be  no  doubt  of  her 
humanity.  She  has  lost  most  of  her  human 
characteristics,  except  that  of  walking  upright. 
Her  other  postures  and  actions  are  those  of  a 
monkey,  and,  of  course,  she  cannot  speak. 
\Yhen  taken  into  captivity  she  was  frightened, 
and  declined  to  eat  anything  except  grass  and 
raw  potatoes.  It  is  believed  that  the  child 
was  abandoned  in  her  infancy,  and  adopted 

51 


RUDYARD     KIPLING 

and  brought  up  by  monkeys,  although  the 
natives  hold  that  her  foster-parents  were  bears. 
At  any  rate,  we  seem  to  have  here  a  case  where 
a  human  being,  beginning  in  extreme  youth, 
has  lived  like  a  beast  with  beasts,  and  on  friendly 
terms  with  them,  and  has  become  to  all  out- 
ward appearances  a  beast  herself.  The  incident 
suggests  many  interesting  problems.  .  .  ." 

The  best  of  all  the  stories  is  Red  Dog.  It 
tells  of  how  the  dhole,  the  red  dog  of  the 
Dekkan,  which  runs  in  great  packs  of  two  or 
three  himdred  and  before  which  all  things  flee, 
comes  north.  Mowgli  has  by  this  cut  himself 
off  from  the  wolf  pack,  but  he  volunteers  to 
aid  it  now.  The  wolf  pack  ranges  itself  on 
the  shores  of  the  River  Waingunga,  which  the 
dhole  will  have  to  cross  to  meet  it.  The  pack 
numbers  but  forty  wolves,  but  the  mother- 
wolves  come  from  their  lairs  to  swell  its  num- 
bers. Meanwhile  Mowgli  sets  out  to  meet  the 
dhole  pack,  and  having  done  so  climbs  a  tree, 
seizes  the  leader  as  he  springs  up  at  him  and 
cuts  off  his  tail  with  the  knife  he  always  carries. 
This  makes  it  certain  that  the  dholes  will  never 
leave  his  trail.  He  reaches  the  ground  and 
manages  to  slip  away  unscathed,  while  they 
follow  with  the  slow,  tireless  lope  that  is  their 
only  pace.  Mowgli  dashes  through  the  rocks 
where  hive  in  countless  millions  the  fierce  wild 

52 


LITERARY    FOUNDATIONS 

bees,  the  Little  People  whom  the  folk  of  the 
jungle  know  to  be  its  most  powerful  inmates, 
and  plunges  into  the  river  as  the  roar  of  their 
angry  rising  sounds  in  his  ears.  Half  the  pack 
is  destroyed  by  the  bees  ;  the  rest  takes  to  the 
water  and  meets  the  wolves  on  the  opposite 
bank.  The  description  of  the  fight  ensuing  is 
one  of  Mr.  Kipling's  most  graphic  passages. 
Here  I  will  give  what  of  it  space  permits  : 

Then  the  long  fight  began,  heaving  and  straining 
and  splitting  and  scattering  and  narrowing  and  broad- 
ening along  the  red  wet  sands  .  .  .  for  even  now  the 
dholes  were  two  to  one.  But  they  met  wolves  fighting 
for  all  that  made  the  pack,  and  not  only  the  short, 
deep-chested  white-tusked  hunters  of  the  pack,  but 
the  wild-eyed  lahinis — the  she-wolves  of  the  lair,  as 
the  saying  is — fighting  for  their  litters,  with  here  and 
there  a  yearling  wolf,  his  first  coat  still  half  woolly, 
tugging  and  grappling  by  their  sides.  A  wolf,  you 
must  know,  flies  at  the  throat  or  snaps  at  the  flank, 
while  a  dhole  by  preference  bites  low,  so  when  the 
dholes  were  struggling  out  of  the  water  and  had  to 
raise  their  heads  the  odds  were  with  the  wolves  ;  on 
dry  land  the  wolves  suffered,  but  in  the  water  or  on 
land  Mowgli's  knife  came  and  went  the  same.  .  .  . 
Here  would  be  a  heaving  mound,  like  a  water-blister 
in  a  whirlpool,  which  would  break  like  a  water-blister, 
and  throw  up  four  or  five  mangled  dogs,  each  striving 
to  get  back  to  the  centre  ;  here  would  be  a  single  wolf 
borne  down  by  two  or  three  dholes,  dragging  them 
forward,  and  sinking  the  while  ;  here  a  yearling  cub 
would  be  held  up  by  the  pressure  around  him,  though 

53 


RUDYARD     KIPLING 

he  had  been  killed  early  in  the  fight,  while  his  mother, 
crazed  with  dumb  grief,  rolled  over  snapping  and 
passing  on  ;  and  in  the  middle  of  the  thickest  fight, 
perhaps,  one  wolf  and  one  dhole,  forgetting  every- 
thing else,  would  be  manoeuvring  for  first  hold  till 
they  were  swept  away  by  a  rush  of  yelling  fighters. 
Once  Mowgli  passed  Akela,  a  dhole  on  either  flank, 
and  his  all  but  toothless  jaws  closed  over  the  loins  of 
a  third ;  and  once  he  saw  Phaon,  his  teeth  set  in  the 
throat  of  a  dhole,  tugging  the  unwilling  beast  forward 
till  the  yearlings  could  finish  him.  But  the  bulk  of 
the  fight  was  blind  flurry  and  smother  in  the  dark  ; 
hit,  trip  and  tumble,  yelp,  groan  and  worry-worry- 
worry  round  him  and  behind  him  and  above  him. 

There  is  something  all  Homeric  in  this 
description,  with  its  sense  of  vague,  stark  fury 
and  slaughter  blended  with  precise  incidents 
like  that  of  the  leader  of  the  pack  dragging 
forward  a  dhole  for  the  yearlings,  who  would 
be  outside  the  thickest  of  the  flight,  to  despatch. 

I  remember  that  when  as  a  boy  I  read  The 
Jungle  Books,  I  felt  a  passionate  protest  rise 
in  me  when  Mowgli  quitted  the  beasts  he  loved 
and  returned  to  men.  When  his  friends, 
Bagheera  the  black  panther,  who  bought  his 
life  with  the  price  of  a  bull  when  an  infant, 
Baloo  who  taught  him,  Kaa  the  forty-foot  rock 
pjrthon  who  had  so  often  befriended  him.  Grey 
Brother  the  eldest  of  the  litter  wherein  he  was 
suckled,  bid  him  farewell,  the  pathos  equals 

54 


LITERARY     FOUNDATIONS 

the  force  of  that  passage  I  have  just  quoted. 
Cries  the  panther  : 

*'  Good  hunting  on  a  new  trail,  Master  of  the 
Jungle  !    Remember  Bagheera  loved  thee." 

"  Thou  hast  heard,"  said  Baloo.  "  There  is  no 
more.  Go  now  ;  but  first  come  to  me.  O  wise  little 
Frog,  come  to  me  !  " 

"  It  is  hard  to  cast  the  skin,"  said  Kaa,  as  Mowgli 
sobbed  and  sobbed  with  his  head  on  the  blind  bear's 
side  and  his  arms  round  his  neck,  while  Baloo  tried 
feebly  to  lick  his  feet. 

"  The  stars  are  thin,"  said  Grey  Brother,  snuffing 
at  the  dawn  wind.  "  Where  shall  we  lair  to-day  ? 
For,  from  now  we  follow  new  trails." 

Mr.  Kipling's  study  of  animals  and  wild  life 
generally  is  a  part  only  of  the  store  upon  which 
he  can  draw.  He  is,  in  fact,  interested  in  and 
informed  upon  an  amazing  number  of  subjects 
— excellently  "  documented,"  as  the  French 
critics  say.  It  is  mainly  for  this  that  he  has 
been  compared  to  Flaubert  and  his  disciple 
Maupassant.  But  if  he  has  given  to  no  one 
subject  a  tenth  of  the  study  of  Flaubert,  he  has 
attacked  ten  times  as  many  subjects  and  drawn 
ten  times  as  many  types.  It  has  been  declared 
of  him  that  he  writes  of  "  the  Hoogli  like  a 
Calcutta  pilot,  of  elephants  like  a  mahout,  of 
the  boar  and  the  nilghai  like  a  native  hunter, 
of  the  poor  like  the  president  of  a  charitable 
society,  like  a  detective  of  the  criminal,  like  an 

55 


RUDYARD     KIPLING 

intelligent  drunkard  of  beer  and  gin  "  (Chev- 
rillon).  To  this  catalogue  it  might  be  added 
that  he  describes  the  horses  in  the  stables  of 
the  Maharajah  of  Jodhpur  as  if  he  were  a  stud 
groom,  that  he  talks  of  machines — and  how 
often  has  he  been  reproached  therewith  ! — like 
a  Scotch  engineer.  The  scenes  of  his  stories  are 
laid  in  India,  South  Africa,  the  Grand  Banks, 
the  United  States  of  America,  the  South  Sea 
Islands,  Devonshire,  Sussex,  the  East  End  of 
London.  He  has  knowledge — or  at  least  the 
appearance  of  knowledge,  for  Europeans  must 
take  his  word  on  some  of  these  subjects — of  the 
nature  of  Indian  priests  and  fakirs,  of  Simla 
drawing-rooms,  of  opium -dens,  mosques,  ze- 
nanas, as  well  as  Kensington  studios,  Sussex 
country-houses. 

Like  Flaubert,  he  has  gained  all  this  know- 
ledge by  very  careful  observation.  There  are 
times  when  we  can  say  with  absolute  certainty 
that  he  is  recording  something  that  he  has 
actually  seen  or  heard.  When  Private  Stanley 
Ortheris,  supping  with  Mulvaney  and  Learoyd 
on  the  roof  of  a  carriage  during  a  regimental 
ball,  calls  their  stolen  champagne  "the  Colonel's 
pet  noosance,"  that  is  not  audacity  or  skill,  but 
simply  reporting.  Such  phrases  are  not  invented 
by  anybody  but  a  Cockney.  But  it  is  seldom 
that  he  leaves  us  with  such  a  certainty.    Even 

56 


LITERARY    FOUNDATIONS 

in  cases  like  these,  where  we  feel  that  he  is 
giving  us  "  life  itself,"  as  admirers  of  our  boring 
present-day  realists  call  it,  he  does  not  make 
the  realism  aggressive.  He  understands  too 
well  that  mere  slices  of  life,  untinged  with  the 
imagination  of  the  retailer,  are  wearisome.  He 
knows — and  would  that  the  knowledge  were 
more  widely  diffused  ! — that  the  average  man 
and  woman  in  their  average  surroundings  are 
not  interesting.  Taken  at  a  climax,  set  in  un- 
wonted surroundings,  subjected  to  unusual  in- 
fluences, they  may  play  their  part  worthily  in 
any  tale  of  "  human  interest."  In  their  ordinary 
moods  and  avocations  we  see  enough  of  them 
as  it  is. 

On  the  other  hand,  he  does  not  always  report 
with  complete  accuracy  ;  he  allows  his  likings 
and  dislikings  to  come  between  his  eyes  and 
what  they  look  upon.  For  example,  he  dis- 
likes— certainly  at  one  time  disliked — Russians. 
He  has  possibly  met  and  assuredly  heard  of 
Russian  officers  travelling  in  India,  ostensibly 
for  sport,  but  glad  to  pick  up  any  information 
to  be  had.  Yet  he  draws  in  Kim — and  it  is  the 
only  false  character  in  the  book^— a  Russian 
spy  who  is  precisely  the  type  of  man  that  would 
last  be  chosen  for  such  delicate  work,  since  he 
is  bad-tempered,  thoughtless,  and  full  of  stupid 
arrogance.  [On  the  other  hand,  he  likes  children, 

57 


RUDYARD    KIPLING 

and  loves  to  bring  them  triumphant  out  of 
every  difficulty.  Therefore  he  makes  Wee 
Willie  Winkie — who  is,  nevertheless,  a  most 
delightful  person — frankly  incredible.  This 
child  of  six,  we  are  to  believe,  delivers  a  lady 
from  armed  rebels  with  a  courage  and  a  cool 
audacity  that  a  brigadier  of  twenty  campaigns 
might  envy.  But  probably  every  reporter  has 
his  prejudicesTl 

Mr.  F.  L.  Knowles  in  A  Kipling  Primer, 
followed  by  Dr.  Leeb-Lundberg  in  Word- 
formation  in  Kipling,  states  that  his  work  may 
be  divided  into  three  periods,  during  which 
three  characteristics  were  predominant.  These 
are  (1)  the  Satirical  Treatment  of  Character, 

(2)  the  Sympathetic  Treatment  of  Character, 

(3)  the  Spiritual  Treatment.  Such  hard-cut 
lines  of  division  are  of  little  service,  but  it  is 
true  to  say  that  Mr.  Kipling  was  very  cynical 
in  youth,  that  later  he  broadened,  and  presently 
also  deepened.  The  Spiritual  Period,  accord- 
ing to  Dr.  Leeb-Lundberg,  "  the  great  spectacle 
of  man's  eternal  struggle  to  assert  himself 
against  the  many-armed  powers  of  fate,"  comes 
with  The  Jungle  Book  and  Captains  Courageous. 

However  this  may  be,[it  is  the  case  that  the 
very  earliest  Mr.  Kipling  can  be  sympathetic, 
and  even  tender,  and  that  the  later  can  be 
exceedingly  brutal.    The  Drums  of  the  Fore  and 

58 


LITERARY    FOUNDATIONS 

Aft,  for  example,  is  an  intimate  study  of  the 
'  nerves '  that  may  affect  the  raw  young 
soldier,  not  over-ably  ledj  All  his  emotions 
when  under  fire  for  the  first  time,  when  he  sees 
his  neighbour  "  turn  over  with  the  rattle  of 
fire-irons  falling  into  the  fender,  and  the  grunt 
of  a  poll-axed  ox,"  are  analysed  with  skill  and 
sympathy.  The  author  lets  us  know  that  the 
soldiers  of  other  regiments  despise  these  men, 
tells  how  a  dying  Highlander  refuses  to  take 
a  drink  of  water  from  the  flask  of  one  of  them', 
but  he  does  not  himself  condemn,  and  he  pities 
— because  he  understands.  He  shows  the  same 
kindly  comprehension  of  the  boy  in  Thrown 
Away,  who  shoots  himself  after  a  course  of 
wild  extravagance  and  dissipation  when  a 
strong  hand  might  have  guided  him  through 
certain  early  quicksands  in  his  path  and  set 
him  upon  firm  ground  beyond  that  his  feet 
would  never  have  left.  On  the  other  hand,  he 
has  sometimes  a  passage  in  which  he  seems  to 
paint  himself,  as  apart  from  his  puppets, 
brutal.    The  Solid  Muldoon  begins  thus  : 

There  had  been  a  royal  dog-fight  in  the  ravine  at  i- 
the  back  of  the  rifle-butts,  between  Learoyd's  Jock 
and  Ortheris's  Blue  Rot — both  mongrel  Rampan 
hounds,  chiefly  ribs  and  teeth.  It  lasted  for  twenty 
happy,  howling  minutes,  and  then  Blue  Rot  collapsed 
and  Ortheris  paid  Learoyd  tliree  rupees,  and  we  were 
all  very  thirsty. 

59 


RUDYARD     KIPLING 

Now  doubtless  such  a  scene  would  be  a  "  royal " 
one  to  such  men  as  Learoyd  and  Ortheris,  but 
a  real,  serious  dog-fight  is  to  the  gentleman  of 
to-day — though  it  was  not  to  his  grandfather, 
be  it  remarked — an  unpleasant  affair.  When 
it  is  carried  on  till  one  of  the  combatants 
"  collapses,"  most  of  us  find  it  rather  sickening. 

The  last  characteristic  of  Mr.  Kipling  that  I 
will  here  notice  is  his  humour.  J  His  literary 
parentage  has  been  the  subjeciB  of  some  not 
very  conclusive  discussion.  Stevenson  has 
been  suggested  as  having  influenced  him  in  his 
choice  of  matter,  the  language  of  the  Bible  im- 
doubtedly  put  its  mark  upon  his  style,  and 
Henley  may  have  helped  to  shape  his  patriotic 
verse.  I  have  often  thought  that  his  grimness, 
his  irony,  his  conciseness  and  precision  of  style 
place  him  in  some  proximity  to  Prosper 
Merim^e. 

|It  is  at  least  certain  that  so  far  as  his  humour 
is  concerned,  he  is  the  child  of  the  Americans, 
above  all  of  Mark  Twain.  VHe  can  be  when  it 
pleases  him  sardonically  humorous  and  cleverly 
— sometimes  a  thought  cheaply — witty.'  But 
for  the  most  part  his  humour  is  that  of  Mark 
Twain  and  the  author  of  The  Luck  of  Roaring 
Camp,  bubbling,  kindly,  coarse,  it  may  be,  but 
real  and  true.  It  does  not  gradually  steal  over 
us  ;   it  strikes  us  suddenly  and  violently  like  a 

60 


LITERARY    FOUNDATIONS 

slap  on  the  back.  I  believe  that  few  normally 
constituted  persons  could  read,  for  example, 
Mulvaney's  exchanges  with  his  friend  Hogan, 
while  the  latter  played  Hamlet  at  Silver's 
Theatre,  Dublin,  without  mirth  : 

"  Hamlut,"  sez  I,  "  there's  a  hole  in  your  heel. 
Pull  up  your  shtoekin's,  Hamlut,"  sez  I.  "  Hamlut, 
Hamlut,  for  the  love  av  decincy  dhrop  that  skull  an' 
pull  up  your  shtoekin's."'  The  whole  house  begun 
to  tell  him  that.  He  stopped  his  soliloquishms  mid- 
between.  "  My  shtoekin's  may  be  comin'  dowTi  or 
they  may  not,"  sez  he,  screwin'  his  eye  into  the  gallery, 
for  well  he  knew  who  I  was.  "  But  afther  this  per- 
formince  is  over  me  an'  the  Ghost'll  trample  the  tripes 
out  av  you,  Terence,  wid  your  ass's  bray  !  " 

But  all  these  various  characteristics  will 
most  clearly  appear  when  Mr.  Kipling's  novels, 
short  stories  and  poems  are  discussed  and 
analysed.  I  have  but  one  remark  more  to 
make  ere  I  turn  to  the  last.  There  has  been 
some  criticism  of  his  early  stories  of  the  social 
life  ii. 'India  on  moral  grounds.  But  it  must 
be  remembered  that  he  has  never  tried  to 
besugar  adultery,  to  make  it  attractive.  It  is, 
in  fact,  not  with  the  first  raptures  that  he  has 
concerned  himself,  but  with  the  weary,  sordid 
days  of  satiety  and  disgust  and  struggle  to  be 
free.  And  if  in  reply  it  be  urged  that  the  same 
argument  could  be  used  in  defence  of  Zola,  the 

61 


RUDYARD     KIPLING 

last  defendant  for  whom  I  should  desire  to  hold 
a  brief,  but  who  cannot  be  accused  of  making 
vice  pleasant,  I  can  only  answer  that  Zola's 
chief  crimes  are,  first  that  he  is  needlessly  dis- 
gusting, which  Mr.  Kipling  is  but  seldom,  and 
second  that  he  is  long-winded  and  monstrously 
dull,  which  Mr.  Kipling  is  never.  In  any  case, 
he  has  left  Mrs.  Herriott  and  Captain  Gadsby, 
Mrs.  Boulte  and  Captain  Kurrell  far  behind. 


62 


IV 

POETRY 

/It  may  be  said  to  begin  with  that  Mr.  KipHng's  ^ 
poetry  suffers  in  comparison  with  his  prose, 
forasmuch  as  a  greater  proportion  of  it  is 
didactic.  The  lessons  he  would  teach  he  has 
striven  "to  teach  by  means  of  his  verses  rather 
than  his  stories.^  I  do  not  desire  to  enter  now 
upon  the  weary  old  controversy  concerning 
subjective  and  objective  standards  of  beauty 
or  merit,  merely  to  assert  my  conviction  that 
— ceteris  paribus,  as  the  professors  say — what 
is  created  by  the  imagination,  what  is  born 
inevitably,  must  be  better  and  purer  art  than 
what  is  manufactured  with  half  an  eye  to  its 
own  perfection  and  half  upon  somethin^ex- 
terior  which  it  is  designed  to  influence.  /Now 
Mr.  Kipling  has  written  a  great  deal  of  his 
poetry — perhaps  the  greater  part  of  it — with 
the  object  of  warning,  of  exhorting,  of  criticiz- 
ing his  country menj?  and,  but  for  one  not  very 
important  allegory*  in  a  late  book,  no  prose 
that  can  be  said  to  have  such  a  direct  end. 

63 


RUDYARD     KIPLING 

To  that  extent  his  poetry  is  handicapped  in 
competition  with  his  prose. 

It  was  Departmental  Ditties,  as  I  have  already 
remarked,  that  brought  Mr.  Kiphng  his  earhest 
fame.  Looking  back  twenty  years,  with  the 
bulk  of  his  subsequent  poetry  as  our  criterion, 
we  shall  be  disposed  to  consider  that  their 
importance  was  exaggerated.  We  shall  admit, 
however,  that  they  were  clever,  witty,  and 
novel. 

They  were  novel,  but  by  no  means  original. 
Swinburne  was  parodied  in  this  fashion  : 

Before  the  beginning  of  years 
There  came  to  the  rule  of  the  State 
Men  with  a  pair  of  shears, 
Men  with  an  Estimate — 
Strachey  with  Muir  for  leaven, 
Lytton  with  locks  that  fell, 
Rippon  fooling  with  Heaven, 
And  Temple  riding  like  H — 11  ! 

which  is  scarcely  worth  while.  And  a  parody 
dealing  with  the  currency  such  as  The  Rupaiyat 
of  Omar  KaVvin  cannot  possess,  and  cannot 
have  been  intended  to  possess,  more  than  a 
very  transient  interest.  There  were,  however, 
better  things  than  this,  light,  graceful  vers  de 
societe,  worthy  of  any  of  the  masters  of  this 
somewhat  difficult  art.  One  of  the  best  and 
merriest  is  An  Old  Song,  that  goes  with  a 
delightful  swing.    The  last  verse  is  as  follows  : 

64 


POETRY 

By  Docket,  Billetdoux,  and  File, 

By  Mountain,  Cliff,  and  Fir, 
By  Fan  and  Sword  and  Office-box, 

By  Corset,  Plume,  and  Spur, 
By  Riot,  Revel,  Waltz  and  War, 

By  Women,  Work  and  Bills, 
By  all  the  life  that  fizzes  in 

The  everlasting  Hills, 

If  you  love  me  as  I  love  you 
What  pair  so  happy  as  we  two  ? 

The  Mare's  Nest  and  Pink  Dominoes  are  of  the 
same  type — light  fare  but  spicy. 

There  were  also  exercises  in  that  sort  of  satire 
and  cynicism  that  abounds  in  Plain  Tales  from 
the  Hills.  The  most  famous  of  these  is  the 
Study  of  an  Elevation,  in  Indian  Ink.  Potiphar 
Gubbins,  c.e.,  its  hero,  is  become  a  household 
word.  He  is  an  eternal  type,  that  flourishes 
under  every  bureaucracy.  Again  I  quote  only 
the  last  verse,  which  gives  the  key-note  of  the 
poem. 

Lovely  Mehitabel  Lee 

Let  me  enquire  of  thee, 

Should  I  have  riz  to  what  Potiphar  is 

Hadst  thou  been  mated  to  Me  ? 

But  far  better  than  this  is  The  Story  of  Uriah, 
with  its  deep  and  bitter  indignation,  concealed 
at  first  under  a  light  tone,  but  bursting  out 
unrestrained  in  the  last  verse.  Mr.  Kipling  is 
not  laughing,  he  is  lashing  somebody  with  a 
cutting-whip  in  this  tale  of  how 
E  Q5 


RUDYARD     KIPLING 

Jack  Barrett  went  to  Quetta 
And  there  gave  up  the  ghost  ; 

Attempting  two  men's  duty 
In  that  very  healthy  post ; 

And  Mrs.  Barrett  mourned  for  him 
Five  lively  months  at  most. 

Jack  Barrett's  bones  at  Quetta 

Enjoy  profound  repose  ; 
But  I  shouldn't  be  astonished 

If  now  his  spirit  knows 
The  reason  of  his  transfer 

From  the  Himalayan  snows. 

And  when  the  Last  Great  Bugle  Call 

Adown  the  Hurnai  throbs, 
When  the  last  grim  joke  is  entered 

In  the  big  black  Book  of  Jobs, 
And  Quetta  gi-aveyards  give  again 

Their  victims  to  the  air, 
I  shouldn't  like  to  be  the  man, 

Who  sent  Jack  Barrett  there. 

The  rhetorical  Ballad  of  Fisher's  Boarding- 
House,  Hke  the  later  Ballad  of  East  and  West, 
and  certain  other  poems  would  be  dearer  to  us 
did  we  not  instinctively  associate  it  with  an 
earnest  rhapsodist,  reciting  amidst  the  blue 
haze  of  a  smoking  concert.  Not  even  this  train 
of  ideas  can  rob  us  of  our  pleasure  in  the  splen- 
did, swinging  Galley-Slave,  probably  an  alle- 
gory of  the  Indian  Civil  Service. 

UEnvoi,  addressed  To  whom  it  may  concern, 
is  entirely  different  from  anything  else  in  the 
book,  and  is  a  forerunner  of  those  simple  and 

66 


POETRY 

beautiful  poems,  generally  in  praise  of  the 
English  countryside,  that  he  was  to  put  forth 
in  after  years.  It  has  a  charm  that  recalls 
some  of  the  songs  of  Davenant  and  Sterling — 
to  put  it  no  higher. 

The  smoke  upon  your  Altar  dies, 

The  flowers  decay, 
The  Goddess  of  your  sacrifice 
t  Has  flown  away. 

What  profit  then  to  sing  or  slay 
The  sacrifice  from  day  to  day  ? 

I  remember  showing  Departmental  Ditties  to  a 
foreigner,  an  acute  if  rather  narrow  critic,  who 
knew  the  British  language  and  literature  far 
better  than  I  do  myself.  He  looked  through  it 
for  half  an  hour,  then  came  to  me  with  the 
page  open  from  which  this  verse  is  quoted. 

"  All  this  may  be  clever  stuff,  but  it's  not 
poetry,"  was  his  comment.  "  This  here  is  the 
only  poem  in  the  book." 

Most  emphatically  I  disagreed ;  yet  I  felt 
that  I  could  understand. 

JBarrack-Room  Ballads  and  Other  Verses  marky^ 
a  long  step  forward.  Grip,  precision,  control 
over  metre,  have  increased  infinitely.  The 
slang,  of  the  canteen  is  used  with  amazing 
skillTj  These  poems  bear  the  same  relation  to 
Soldiers  Three  as  Departmental  Ditties  to  Plain 
Tales.    But  it  was  probably  a  greater  achieve- 

67 


\ 


RUDYARD     KIPLING 

ment  to  put  the  thoughts  of  the  private  soldier 
into  verse  than  to  write  stories  of  his  doings. 
Since  these  songs  were  written  there  has  been 
a  great  change  in  the  attitude  of  the  general 
public  to  the  army.  Something  of  this  change 
is  doubtless  due  to  an  improvement  in  the 
class  of  man  who  enlists  and  in  his  behaviour 
thereafter  ;  something  to  the  fact  that  we  are 
as  a  people  more  thoughtful  than  we  were 
twenty  years  ago.  But  perhaps  even  more  is 
owing  to  society's  greater  knowledge  of  the 
soldier's  life,  in  imparting  which  knowledge 
Mr.  Kipling  has  been  almost  alone.  He  voiced 
the  unhappiness  of  being  misunderstood,  the 
impatience  of  never-ending  criticism,  the  desire 
for  sympathy  in  the  plea  : 

We  aren't  no  thin  red  'eroes,  nor  we  aren't  no  blackguards 

too, 
But  single  men  in  barracks,  most  remarkable  like  you. 

The  soldier  knew  his  service  : 

Walk  wide  o'  the  Widow  at  Windsor 

For  'alf  o'  creation  she  owns  ; 
We  'ave  bought  'er  the  same  withthe  sword  an' the  flame, 

An'  we've  salted  it  down  with  our  bones. 

He  knew  also  how  to  respect  a  worthy  foe,  and 
none  more  than  "  Fuzzy- Wuzz,"  the  howling 
Dervish  of  the  Soudan,  who  is  not  only  hard  to 
kill  but  "  generally  shammin'  when  'e's  dead." 
He  tells  us  candidly  that : 

68 


POETRY 

An  'appy  day  with  Fuzzy  on  the  rush 
Will  last  an  'ealthy  Tommy  for  a  year. 

His  less  regenerate  moments  are  suggested  in 
the  sardonic  philosophy  of  The  Ladies  and 
Loot.  The  latter  shows  the  advance  of  his 
power  since  An  Old  Song.  Mr.  Le  Gallienne 
has  called  him  "  master  of  the  singing  ballad, 
with  swinging  jingle  chorus,"  and  this  poem  is 
one  of  the  best  examples  of  that  class  of  verse. 
It  begins  : 

If  you've  ever  stole  a  pheasant-egg  be'ind  the  keeper's 

back,  / 

If  you've  ever  snigged  the  washin'  from  the  line,  j 

If   you've   ever   crammed   a   gander   in   your   bloomin' 
'aversack. 
You  will  understand  this  little  song  o'  mine.  «' 

Mr.  Le  Gallienne  proceeds  to  say — and  evidently       \ 
he  intends  it  as  in  some  sort  a  stricture — that         \ 
Mr.  Kipling's  favourite  instrument  is  the  banjo.         \ 
If  this  be  true,  it  will  at  least  be  conceded  that 
he    is    a    master-minstrel.    [In    Barrack-Room  j 

Ballads  is  a  "  banjo  song  "  that  is  not  merely 
his  best,  but  one  of  the  best  ever  written,  even 
if  we  hark  back  to  Beranger  for  a  comparison. 
No  poem  in  English  written  in  the  last  five-and- 
twenty  years  is  known  so  widely,  has  so  taken 
hold  upon  the  imaginations  of  English-speak- 
ing people  as  MandalayJ  Here  is  a  puff  of  the 
very  wind  of  Romance,  spice-laden,  hot  from 

69 


RUDYARD     KIPLING 

^^'  the  burnished  East.  The  battered  soldier  is 
looking  back  to  a  heaven  that  distance  has 
made  '^all-glorious. 

When  the  mist  was  on  the  rice-fields  an'  the  sun  was 

droppin'  slow, 
She'd  git  'er  little  banjo  an'  she'd  sing  "  Kulla-lo-lp  !  " 
With  'er  arm  upon  my  shoulder  an'  'er  cheek  agin  my 

cheek 
We  useter  watch  the  steamers  an'  the  hathis  pilin'  teak. 

The  restlessness,  the  impatience  in  the  clinging 
bonds  of  civilization  that  are  Mr.  Kipling's, 
are  put  into  the  words  of  the  private,  crying 
out  for  the  East  : 

Where  there  aren't  no  Ten  Commandments  an'  a  man 
can  raise  a  thirst. 

The  concluding  line  of  the  refrain  is,  I  venture 
to  assert,  the  greatest  and  most  inspired  line  in 
contemporary  poetry. 

An'  the  dawn  comes  up  like  thunder  outer  China  'crost 
the  Bay  ! 

"  Banjo  songs  "  that  are  inspired  are  far  finer 
fare  than  serious  poetry  that  is  not.  Just  as 
lolanthe  and  The  Gondoliers  are  truer  art  than 
anything  that  Gounod  or  Thomas  ever  wrote, 
so  Mandalay  stands  above  almost  all  the  work 
of  the  respectable  poets  of  the  later  Victorian 
era,  whom  it  were  invidious  to  name. 

But  in  Barrack-Room  Ballads  there  is  em- 
ployed occasionally  another  instrument  than 

70 


POETRY 

the  banjo — the  pipes  in  their  saddest  wail. 
Cholera  Camp  has  running  through  it  a  note 
of  poignant  distress  that  tears  the  heart. 

Oh,  strike  your  camp  an'  go,  the  bugle's  callin', 

The  Rains  are  fallin' — 
The  dead  are  bushed  an'  stoned  to  keep  'em  safe  below  ; 
The  Band's  a-doin'  all  she  knows  to  cheer  us  ; 
The  Chaplain's  gone  and  prayed  to  Gawd  to  'ear  us — 

To  'ear  us — 
O  Lord,  for  it's  a-killin'  of  us  so  ! 

But  Httle  short  of  this  in  plaintive  intensity  is 
Danny  Deever,  with  its  final  refrain  : 

O,  they're  hangin'  Danny  Deever  in  the  mornin'. 

The  "  Other  Verses "  contain  many  fine 
things,  but  are  not  in  the  main  up  to  the 
standard  of  the  poems  that  precede  them. 
The  Ballad  of  the  "  Bolivar  "  is  one  of  the  best- 
known,  and  rings  finely  with  the  indignation 
that  we  all  feel  against  those  who  send  out 
ships  "  meant  to  founder."  The  Ballad  of 
East  and  West  has  been  much  criticized,  and 
it  is  certainly  very  uneven.  Francis  Adams  in 
The  Fortnightly  article  which  I  have  mentioned 
makes  one  good  point  in  showing  the  contrast 
between  these  two  succeeding  lines  : 

With  that  he  whistled  his  only  son,  that  dropped  from  a 

mountain  crest — 
He  trod  the  ling  like  a  buck  in  spring,  and  he  looked  like 

a  lance  in  rest. 

71 


RUDYARD    KIPLING 

The  first  of  these  Hnes  is  rodomontade,  and  it 
is  not  unfair  to  demand  how  it  came  that,  when 
after  a  chase  lasting  all  night  the  horse  of  the 
pursued  fell,  the  only  son  should  happen  to  be 
at  hand  upon  a  mountain  crest  within  reach  of 
a  whistle.  The  second  line  is  expressive  and 
splendid.  The  Three  Captains,  a  tale  of  Paul 
Jones,  is  certainly  the  most  obscure  of  all  Mr. 
Kipling's  poems.  Cleared  is  an  extraordinarily 
bitter  expression  of  political  feeling,  though 
there  is  no  doubt  that  it  clothed  in  words  the 
sentiment  of  a  great  proportion  of  the  com- 
munity on  the  Parnell  Commission  Report. 

They  only  took  the  Judas-gold  from  Fenians  out  of  jail, 
They  only  fawned  for  dollars  on  the  blood-dyed  Clan-na- 

Gael. 
If  black  is  black  or  white  is  white,  in  black  and  white  it's 

down, 
They're  only  traitors  to  the  Queen  and  rebels  to  the  Crown. 

[But  it  was  not  till  he  reached  The  Seven 
Seas  that  Mr.  Kipling's  destiny  was  accom- 
plished. There  is  therein  one  poem  at  least, 
The  Sea  and  the  Hills,  that  belongs  to  the  very 
highest  order  of  English  poetry,  that  would 
deserve  a  place  in  a  collection  of  the  hundred 
finest  short  poems  in  the  language.  It  is  * 
written  in  a  metre  that  Swinburne  might  have 
used,  (with  a  theme  whereon  he  loved  to  dwell. 
No  poem  that  that  great  master  of  rhythm 

72 


POETRY 

ever  put  forth  excels  it.  /it  is,  like  much  of 
Swinbui-ne's  verse,  for  the  ear  even  more  than 
the  eye,  and  onomatopoeia  is_employed  with 
more  than  Swinburne's  skiTirjjNone  save  "  the 
man  that  hath  not  music  in  himself  "  can  read 
aloud  the  following  verse  without  perceiving 
how  the  fifth  and  sixth  lines  suggest  respec- 
tively the  rush  of  the  wave  up  the  beach  and 
the  shorter  back-suck  as  it  retreats. 

Who  hath  desired  the  Sea  ? — the  sight  of  salt  water 
unbounded — 

The  heave  and  the  halt  and  the  hurl  and  the  crash  of  the 
comber  wind-hounded  ? 

The  sleek-barrelled  swell  before  storm,  grey,  foamless, 
enormous  and  gromng — 

Stark  calm  on  the  lap  of  the  Line  or  the  crazy-eyed  hurri- 
cane blowing — 

His  Sea  is  no  showing  the  same — his  Sea  and  the  same 
'neath  each  showing — 

His  Sea  as  she  slackens  or  thrills  ? 

So    and   no    other^vise — so    and    no    otherwise — hillmen 
desire  their  Hills  ! 

If  one  must  so  lack  grace  as  to  criticize  this 
magnificent  poem,  the  only  possible  criticism 
is  that  its  title  and  the  refrain  in  the  last  line 
of  each  verse  are  out  of  place.  It  is  essentially 
a  poem  of  the  sea,  and  the  desire  of  hillmen  for 
their  hills  comes  as  a  distraction  to  the  mind 
if  not  to  the  earr/  "^ 

While  this  is  Brst,  there  are  other  poems  that 
are  fine,  though  with  the  best  I  am  not  inclined 

73 


/ 


RUDYARD     KIPLING 

to  include  The  English  Flag  or  the  too-famous 
Envoi  beginning  : 

When  Earth's  last  picture  is  painted. 

Tomkinson  has  a  grim  and  cynical  power,  and 
The  Lost  Legion,  the  song  of  the  pioneers  who 
say: 

We  preach  in  advance  of  the  Army, 
We  skirmish  ahead  of  the  Church, 

is  another  expression  of  the  love  of  the  primeval 
to  which  I  have  frequently  referred.  It  goes 
with  a  swing  as  fine  as  that  of  Loot. 

Then  a  health  (we  must  drink  it  in  whispers) 

To  our  wholly  unauthorized  horde — 
To  the  line  of  our  dusty  forelopers, 

The  Gentlemen  Rovers  abroad — 
Yes,  a  health  to  ourselves  ere  we  scatter. 

For  the  steamer  won't  wait  for  the  train. 
And  the  legion  that  never  was  'listed 

Goes  back  into  quarters  again  ! 

It  is  curious  to  note  how  divergent  are  the 
opinions  of  the  critics  as  to  the  merits  of  certain 
of  Mr.  Kipling's  poems.  For  example,  the 
Edinburgh  reviewer  calls  M^ Andrew's  Hymn 
"  splatterdash  writing,"  while  M.  Chevrillon 
considers  it  as  good  as  anything  Browning  ever 
wrote.  It  has  certainly  the  qualities  that  are 
in  Browning,  for  it  is  compressed  and  packed 
with  thought.  But  it  does  not  sustain  the 
interest  as  Browning's  poetry  does.  He  has 
written,  however,  certain  poems  that  have  little 

74 


POETRY 

merit,  and  one,  The  Files,  that  I  do  not  hesitate 
to  call  exceedingly  bad,  and  that  I  was  as- 
tonished to  find  included  in  his  recently  pub- 
lished Collected  Verse.    It  begins  thus  : 

FHes— 
The  Files- 
Office  Files  ! 
Oblige  me  by  referring  to  the  files. 

IWith  the  exception  of  Mandalay  and  The 
Sea  and  the  Hills  I  believe  that  every  one  of 
Mr.  Kipling's  finest  poems  have  been  poems  of 
patriotism  or  poems  expressive  of  his  love  for 
the  English  country-side.  And  it  is  to  the  latter, 
of  all  his  poetry,  that  least  exception  can  be 
taken.  The  man  who  holds — as  there  are  who 
hold — that  his  verse  is  in  the  main  disfigured 
by  a  certain  garishness,  a  straining  of  the  note, 
can  find  no  such  objection  to  these  simple, 
beautiful  lyrics.  Those  who  know  only  the 
Kipling  of  The  English  Flag,  with  its  trace  of 
bluster,  could  scarcely  imagine  that  he  had 
written  also  : 

Buy  my  English  posies  ! 

Kent  and  Surrey  may — 
Violets  of  the  undercliff 

Wet  with  Channel  spray  ; 
Cowslips  from  a  Devon  combe — 

Midland  furze  afire — 
Buy  my  English  posies 

And  I'll  sell  your  heart's  desire  ; 

75 


RUDYARD     KIPLING 

or  these  beautiful  lines  from  a  poem  in  Puck 
of  Pook's  Hill  : 

Trackway  and  Camp  and  City  lost, 
Salt  Marsh  where  now  is  corn  ; 

Old  Wars,  old  Peace,  old  Arts  that  cease. 
And  so  was  England  born  ! 

She  is  not  any  common  Earth, 

Water  or  wood  or  air. 
But  Merlin's  Isle  of  Gramarye, 

Where  you  and  I  will  fare. 

[Mr.  Kipling's  most  famous  poem  Recessional 
is  one  that  I  do  not  think  will  dieTj  I  think  it 
deserves  to  live.  Those  who  think  the  con- 
trary can  console  themselves  with  the  reflec- 
tion that  [It  is  not  always  the  best  poems  of  a 
popular  poet  that  catch  the  popular  sentiment) 
Thousands  of  men  know  The  Charge  of  the 
Light  Brigade,  perhaps  large  portions  of  iL  by 
heart,  who  have  never  heard  of  Ulysses.  JAnd 
I  believe  that  it  will  live  as  much  for  its  faults 
as  its  great  merits.  For  its  weakness  is  the 
weakness  of  the  English  race,  an  almost  in- 
tolerable arrogance  beneath  a  mask  of  humility. 
The  Englishman  does  not  boast  that  he  belongs 
to  the  greatest  race  in  the  world,  because  he  is 
so  convinced  thereof  that  it  is  not  worth  while. 
M.  Chevrillon,  in  a  study  of  English  opinion  on 
^  the  Boer  War  which  is  bound  with  that  study 

76 


POETRY 

of  Mr.  Kipling  that  I  have  so  often  quoted, 
notices  how  absolutely  confident  we  were  at 
that  time  that  we  had  God  on  our  side.  The 
Boers  were,  according  to  the  general  opinion, 
a  savage,  fanatical,  untrustworthy  race  whom 
it  was  set  upon  us  to  overbear.  We  did  not — 
till  long  afterwards — recognize  their  heroism, 
we  were  never  allowed  to  realize  the  tremendous 
disproportion  of  the  forces  arrayed  against  one 
another  in  the  struggle.  One  heard  scarce  a 
generous  word  throughout  the  whole  duration 
of  the  war.  I  do  not  mean  for  an  instant  that 
Mr.  Kipling  is  to  be  included  in  this  general 
accusation.  He  knew  the  Boer  farmer  too  well 
to  despise  him.  His  General  Joubert  was  a 
noble  tribute  to  a  great  man.  /^ut  undoubtedly 
there  is  in  Recessional  a  hint  of  this  spirit  of 
arrogance,!  a  feeling  that  we  are  the  Lord's 
peculiar  people,  that  if  He  fails  us  it  will  be 
because  we  have  deserted  Him,  not  because 
the  cause  of  the  "  Gentiles  "  seems  righteous 
to  Him.  iMark  this  arrogance  above  all  in  the 
fourth  verse  :  \ 

^  God  of  our  fathers,  known  of  old, 
Lord  of  our  far-fiung  battle-line. 

Beneath  whose  a^vful  Hand  we  hold 
Dominion  over  palm  and  pine — 

Lord  God  of  Hosts,  be  with  us  yet, 

Lest  we  forget — lest  we  forget  ! 

77 


RUDYARD     KIPLING 

The  tumult  and  the  shouting  dies  ; 

The  captains  and  the  kings  depart ; 
Still  stands  thine  ancient  sacrifice, 

An  humble  and  a  contrite  heart. 
Lord  God  of  Hosts,  be  with  us  yet. 
Lest  we  forget — lest  we  forget ! 

Far-called,  our  navies  melt  away  ; 

On  dune  and  headland  sinks  the  fire  : 
Lo,  all  our  pomp  of  yesterday 

Is  one  with  Nineveh  and  Tyre  ! 
Judge  of  the  Nations,  spare  us  yet, 
Lest  we  forget — lest  we  forget  ! 

If  drunk  with  sight  of  power,  we  loose 
Wild  tongues  that  have  not  Thee  in  awe. 

Such  boastings  as  the  Gentiles  use, 
Or  lesser  breeds  without  the  Law — 

Lord  God  of  Hosts,  be  with  us  yet. 

Lest  we  forget — lest  we  forget ! 

For  heathen  heart  that  puts  her  trust 
In  reeking  tube  and  iron  shard. 

All  valiant  dust  that  builds  on  dust 
And  guarding,  calls  not  Thee  to  guard. 

For  frantic  boast  and  foolish  word — 

Thy  Mercy  on  Thy  People,  Lord. 

When  every  possible  criticism  has  been  made, 
I  still  believe  that  Recessional  remains  one  of 
the  greatest  patriotic  hymns  in  the  language. 
It  may  be — it  almost  certainly  is — illogical  on 
entering  into  battle  to  pray  to  God  for  victory, 
while  your  opponent  does  likewise  with  like 
conviction  of  a  righteous  cause.    But  it  will  be 

78 


POETRY 

done  so  long  as  men  pray  to  ^  personal  God 
and  so  long  as  they  go  to  wai\^  And  we  must 
not  forget  that  in  most  wars  both  antagonists 
have  right  on  their  side — not  absolute  right  as 
it  would  be  understood  in  a  perfect  and  logical 
world,  but  right  as  it  must  be  understood  in 
the  world  we  live  in  with  its  conflicting  ideals 
and  creeds  and  nationalities.  And  as  a  patriotic 
hymn  this  is  nearly  perfect ;  it  has  at  once 
simplicity,  dignity  and  sonority.  Its  biblical 
language  gives  to  it  a  sense  of  awe,  so  that  one 
can  imagine  it  recited  in  some  vast  cathedral 
on  the  eve  of  war  amidst  an  intense,  shuddering 
silence.  It  is  not  alone  the  work  of  a  true  poet, 
but  of  a  poet  who  understands  his  countrymen's 
hearts. 

Parallel  with  Mr.  Kipling's  love  of  the 
primeval  is  a  curious  characteristic,  an  ab-  ^ 
sorbing  interest  in  the  most  important  ap- 
panages of  civilization,  its  ships,  its  machines, 
its  workshops.  This  will  be  of  great  import- 
ance in  the  discussion  of  his  stories,  but  it  is 
also  in  evidence  in  certain  of  his  poems. 
M'' Andrew's  Hymn,  for  example,  is  full  of  the 
throb  of  ships'  engines.  He  has  been  careful 
to  point  out  that  this  our  world  is  not  without 
its  glamour,  though  he  has  gone  to  others  for 
the  stories  that  are  deepest  charged  with  its 
essence.     He  has  noted  how  each  age,  up  to 

79 


RUDYARD    KIPLING 

the  present,  has  mourned  the  death  of  Romance 

while 

all  unseen 
Romance  brought  up  the  nine-fifteen. 

But  he  has  himself  done  much  to  prove  that 
Romance  is  yet  very  much  alive  by  the  skill 
with  which  he  has  woven  it  into  the  technical 
details  of  modern  affairs.  No  poem,  for 
example,  could  be  more  purely  and  genuinely 
romantic  than  that  from  which  I  quote  the 
following  verse  ;  its  metre  is  laden  with  its 
hunger  and  yearning.  Yet  the  first  four  lines 
might  be  taken  directly  from  the  mouth  of  an 
officer  getting  his  ship  under  way  : 

Heh  !  Walk  her  round.  Heave,  ah,  heave  her  short  again  ! 

Over,  snatch  her  over,  there,  and  hold  her  on  the  pawl. 
Loose  all  sail  and  brace  your  yards  aback  and  full — 

Ready  jib  to  pay  her  off  and  heave  short  all ! 

Well,  ah  fare  you  well ;   we  can  stay  no  more 

with  you,  my  love — 
Down,  set  down  your  liquor  and  your  girl  from 
off  your  knee  ; 
For  the  wind  has  come  to  say  : 
"  You  must  take  me  while  you  may 
If  you'd  go  to  Mother  Carey  ! 
(Walk  her  down  to  Mother  Carey  !) 
Oh,  we're  bound  to  Mother  Carey  where  she  feeds  her 
chicks  at  sea  !  " 

(There  yet  remains  something  to  be  said  on 
the  subject  of  Mr.  Kipling's  metres.  [  I  have 
already  mentioned  Herr  Loewe's  Beftrage  zur 

80 


POETRY 

Metrik  Rudyard  Kipling's.  It  is  a  book  that 
should  fill  us  with  national  shame — blent  with 
a  certain  sneaking  feeling  of  national  thankful- 
ness— that  such  things  are  not  done  amongst 
us.  Its  thoroughness  is  appalling.  Herr  Loewe 
notes  where  such  different  quantities  as  'chance' 
and  '  circumstance,'  '  land '  and  *  command '  are 
made  to  rime.  He  calls  our  attention  to  '  frock- 
coat  '  and  '  beam-sea,'  so  accented.  He  is  con- 
cerned over  the  riming  of  long  and  short '  i,'  as 
*  wise  '  and  '  homilies.'  Along  this  nice  path  I 
shall  not  follow  him  ;  I  recognize  too  well  that 
I  write  for  readers  infinitely  less  scientific  than 
his.  But  I  am  indebted  to  him  for  many  sug- 
gestions, the  product  of  his  care  and  industiy 
in  the  study  of  Mr.  Kipling's  me,tres. 

These  are  many  and  varied,  [^ost  poets  who 
have  great  skill  in  the  management  of  metre, 
such  as  Tennyson  and  Swinburne,  love  to 
practise  it,  and  Mr.  Kipling's  dexterity  is  not 
far  below  that  of  either.  Blank  verse  he  has 
seldom  employed,  and  rightly,  for  it  is  not  his 
natural  metre.  He  has  made  best  use  of  it, 
perhaps,  in  One  Viceroy  Resigns,  from  which  I 
have  already  quoted.J  This  poem  is  very  closely 
modelled  upon  Browning,  and  in  its  tone 
recalls  Bishop  Blougram's  Confession.  Giffen's 
Debt  and  X^e  Sacrifice  of  Ex-Heh  are  heavy  and 
lifeless.  [There  is  little  swing  in  his  blank  verse, 
F  81 


RUDYARD    KIPLING 

little  of  that  elasticity  which  alone  can  save 
this  metre  from  monotony.  More  complicated 
as  well  as  simpler  metres  he  has  employed  with 
great  effect.  Years  have  made  him  a  truer  and 
a  deeper  poet,  but  they  have  not  brought  him 
greater  dexterity  than  he  possessed  when  he 
wrote  Christmas  in  India,  in  Departmental 
Ditties : 

Dim   dawn  behind  the  tamarisks — the   sky  is  saffron- 
yellow — 
As  the  women  in  the  village  grind  the  corn, 
And  the  mynas  seek  the  river-side,  each  calling  to  his 
fellow 
That  the  Day,  the  staring  Eastern  Day,  is  born.  •. 

iTn  later  times  his  poem  The  Dead  King,  on  the 
death  of  His  late  Majesty  King  Edward  the 
Seventh,  is  an  example  of  most  masterly 
handling  of  very  difficult  metrej  It  excited 
more  admiration  in  Germany,  where  technical 
skill  is  better  understood  than  amongst  us, 
than  in  this  country.  [It  begins  :j 

Who  in  the  realm  to-day  lays  down  dear  life  for  the  sake 

of  a  land  more  dear  ? 
And,  unconcerned  for  his  own  estate,  toils  till  the  last 

grudged  sands  have  run  ? 

The  Alexandrine  he  has  used  in  The  'Eathen 
and  The  Three-Decker,  and  with  more  effect  jn 
the  fine  Anchor  Song  in  The  Seven  Seas.  [He 
has  employed  six-syllable  trochaical  verse,  a 

82 


POETRY 

very  rare  metre  in  English,  in  The  Sergeant's 
Wedding  : 

'E  was  warned  agin  'er —        ^ 
That's  what  made  'im  look.  \ 

QBut  great  as  is  his  skill  in  such  forms,  it  is 
equalled  in  his  treatment  of  the  simplest^  And 
the  skill  needed  for  dealing  with  very  simple 
forms  of  verse  is  as  great  as  that  for  dealing 
with  very  complicated.  The  "  common  metre  " 
of  the  seventeenth  century,  four  lines  of  alter- 
nately eight  and  six  feet,  cross-riming,  has 
been  almost  handed  over  since  that  day  to  the 
use  of  comic  or  nursery  poets,  because  since 
then  none  have  been  able  to  write  serious  poetry 
in  it.  But  in  those  days  not  only  a  great  poet 
like  Donne  but  a  poetical  has  bleu  like  "  The 
Matchless  Orinda  "  could  handle  it  with  ease 
and  skill.     It  was  in  this  metre  that  Herrick 

wrote  : 

No  marigolds  yet  closed  are, 

No  shadows  great  appear  ; 
Nor  doth  the  early  shepherd's  star 

Shine  like  a  spangle  here. 

And  to  show  that  the  art  of  very  simple  yet 
very  beautiful  verse-making  is  not  dead  it 
needs  only  to  study  some  of  the  little  poems  of 
Mr.  W.  H.  Davies,  smelling  of  the  country  and 
wild  flowers  and  the  breath  of  cattle. 
(In  the  simplest  dactylic  form  Mr.  Kipling 

83 


RUDYARD    KIPLING 

has  written  one  of  the  most  bewitching  poems 
that  I  know  in  praise  of  native  land.  There  is 
magic  in  every  word,  yet  not  one  word  that 
belongs  to  "  poetic  diction,"  scarce  one  that 
might  not  be  in  the  mouth  of  the  humblest^ 
The  Recall  is  appended,  in  its  author's  fashion, 
to  a  story  in  Actions  and  Reactions  called  An 
Habitation  Enforced.  It  relates  how  an  Ameri- 
can and  his  wife,  visiting  Sussex  in  search  of 
health,  are  entrapped  by  its  allurements,  and 
how,  after  they  have  planned  there  to  take  up 
their  abode,  it  is  discovered  that  the  wife's 
ancestors  sprang  from  those  parts.  The  story 
I  shall  consider  later.  [With  the  poem  I  shall 
conclude  my  study  of  this  branch  of  Mr. 
Kipling's  art. 

I  am  the  land  of  their  fathers, 

In  me  the  virtue  stays  ; 
I  will  bring  back  my  children 

After  certain  days. 

Under  their  feet  in  the  grasses 

My  clinging  magic  runs. 
They  shall  return  as  strangers, 

They  shall  remain  as  sons. 

Over  their  heads  in  the  branches 
Of  their  new-bought  ancient  trees, 

I  weave  an  incantation, 

And  draw  them  to  my  knees. 

84 


POETRY 

Scent  of  smoke  in  the  evening, 

Smell  of  rain  in  the  night, 
The  hours,  the  days  and  the  seasons, 

Order  their  souls  aright ; 

Till  I  make  plain  the  meaning 
Of  all  my  thousand  years — 

Till  I  fill  their  hearts  with  knowledge. 
While  I  fill  their  eyes  with  tears.  Jj 


85 


V 

SHORT     STORIES:  I 

In  Mr.  Kipling's  early  stories  cynicism  was, 
after  descriptive  power,  the  most  striking 
characteristic.  For  the  cynic  there  could  be 
no  sight  more  entertaining  than  the  spectacle 
of  social  life  in  India.  That  social  life  may 
seem  at  first  view  incredible,  but  carefully 
considered  it  proves  to  be  such  as  might  be 
expected.  Set  beneath  a  semi-tropical  sun  a 
large  but  scattered  colony  of  English  men  and 
women,  belonging  to  the  upper  and  upper- 
middle  classes,  for  the  most  part  young  or  in 
the  prime  of  life.  Remove  from  them  the 
influence  of  that  lower-middle  class  which  is 
at  home  so  stern  a  censor  of  morals.  Let  the 
women  be  so  cunningly  served  that  they  are 
well-nigh  freed  from  those  household  cares  that 
would  otherwise  engage  them.  Give  the  men 
in  their  turn  tasks  which  demand,  as  well  as 
courage  and  absolute  self-confidence,  fierce 
bursts  of  painful  energy,  but  allow  long  inter- 
vals of  leisure.    The  obvious  result  from  these 

86 


SHORT     STORIES 

conditions  will  be  a  certain  contempt  for 
ordinary  social  obligations,  a  general  slacken- 
ing of  the  bonds  of  social  discipline.  And  the 
restraints  of  sexual  relationship  will  not  be  the 
last  to  be  loosened. 

It  was  upon  these  foibles  that  the  young 
cynic  directed  the  raking  fires  of  his  wit.  He 
observed  with  his  keen  eyes  the  Mrs.  Hauks- 
bees  and  the  Mrs.  Reivers,  middle-aged  women 
with  a  propensity  for  young  men  and  the  skill 
of  a  condottiere  in  the  pursuit  of  their  quarry. 
He  draws  them  for  us  with  marvellous  fidelity, 
even  if  he  sees  not  very  de^p  into  their  souls. 
When  he  relates  the  conversation  of  two  ladies 
of  this  type,  as  in  The  Education  of  Otis  Yere, 
the  only  word  we  can  find  to  describe  the  im- 
pression made  upon  us  is  "  uncanny."  Even 
when  a  maid  is  wooed  in  the  East,  it  is  a 
"  brazen  business,"  he  tells  us,  "  when  half  the 
community  stand  back  and  bet  on  the  result, 
and  the  other  half  wonder  what  Mrs.  So-and-So 
will  say  to  it."  And  if  he  is  never  salacious, 
he  certainly  never  minces  his  words.  What 
could  be  bolder  in  the  nineties  than  such  an 
opening  as  :  "  Once  upon  a  time  there  was  a 
Man  and  his  Wife  and  a  Tertium  Quid  "  ?  It 
is  also  a  model  from  the  artistic  point  of  view, 
since  it  brings  the  whole  situation  into  focus 
with  almost  unexampled  compression. 

87 


RUDYARD     KIPLING 

All  the  characteristics  of  these  early  stories 
are  to  be  found  in  The  Story  of  the  Gadshys. 
Here  the  powers  that  he  possessed  in  those 
days,  if  far  below  those  that  he  afterwards 
attained,  are  at  their  highest.  The  Story  of 
the  Gadshys  has  been  condemned  on  the  score 
of  vulgarity,  I  think  somewhat  unfairly.  It  is, 
one  must  admit,  not  a  pleasant  tale.  Most  of 
Mr.  Kipling's  early  women  were  sorceresses, 
and  there  is  something  of  the  sorceress  even 
about  the  bread-and-butter  Miss  Minnie  Three- 
gan,  and  something  a  little  disagreeable  about 
her  fashion  of  captivating  the  fine  brute 
Captain  Gadsby.  There  is  one  brilliant  and 
extraordinarily  cruel  scene  between  Gadsby 
and  his  whilom  mistress  when  he  tells  her  of 
his  engagement,  that  I  must  quote  at  some 
length.  The  explanation  between  them  has 
been  put  off  by  him  again  and  again,  till  at 
last,  meeting  her  at  a  banquet,  he  decides  that 
it  can  be  put  off  no  longer! 

Mrs.  Herriott.  {After  conversation  has  risen  to 
proper  y itch.)  Ali.  Didn't  see  you  in  the  crush  in  the 
drawing-room.  {Sotto  voce.)  Where  have  you  been 
all  this  time,  Pip  ? 

Captain  Gadsby.  {Turning  from  regularly  ordained 
dinner -partner  and  settling  hock-glasses.)  Good  even- 
ing. {Sotto  voce.)  Not  quite  so  loud  another  time. 
You've  no  notion  how  your  voice  carries.     {Aside.) 

88 


SHORT    STORIES 

So  much  for  shirking  the  written  explanation.    It'll 
have  to  be  a  verbal  one  now.    Sweet  prospect.  .  .  . 

Then,  after  a  long  conversation  : 

Mrs.  H.  Oh,  what  is  the  good  of  squabbling  and 
pretending  to  misunderstand  when  you  are  only  up 
for  a  short  time  ?    Pip,  don't  be  a  stupid  ! 

Follows  a  pause,  during  which  he  crosses  his  left  leg 
over  his  right  and  continues  his  dinner. 

Capt.  G.  {In  answer  to  the  thunderstorm  in  her  eyes.) 
Corns — my  worst. 

Mrs.  H.  Upon  my  word,  you  are  the  very  rudest 
man  in  the  world  !    I'll  never  do  it  again. 

Capt.  G.  {Aside.)  No,  I  don't  think  you  will ;  but 
I  wonder  what  you  will  do  before  it's  all  over.  {To 
Khitmatgar.)    Thorah  ur  Simpkin  do. 

Mrs.  H.  Well  !  Haven't  you  the  grace  to  apologise, 
bad  man  ? 

Capt.  G.  {Aside.)  I  mustn't  let  it  drift  back  now. 
Trust  a  woman  for  being  as  blind  as  a  bat  when  she 
won't  see. 

Mrs.  H.  I'm  waiting  :  or  would  you  like  me  to 
dictate  a  form  of  apology  ? 

Capt.  G.    {Desperately.)    By  all  means  dictate. 

Mrs.  H.  {Lightly.)  Very  well.  Rehearse  your 
several  Christian  names  after  me  and  go  on  :  "  Pro- 
fess my  sincere  repentance." 

Capt.  G.    "  Sincere  repentance — - — " 

Mrs.  H.    "  For  having  behaved " 

Capt.  G.  {Aside.)  At  last  !  I  wish  to  goodness 
she'd  look  away.  "  For  having  behaved  " — as  I  have 
behaved,  and  declare  that  I  am  thoroughly  and 
heartily  sick  of  the  whole  business,  and  take  this 

89 


RUDYARD     KIPLING 

opportunity  of  making  clear  my  intention  of  ending 
it,  now,  henceforth,  and  forever.  (Aside.)  If  anyone 
had  told  me  I  should  be  such  a  blackguard ! 

Mrs.  H.     (Shaking  a  spoonful  of  potato  chips  into 
her  plate.)    That's  not  a  pretty  joke. 

Capt.  G.  No.  It's  a  reality.  (Aside.)  1  wonder  if 
smashes  of  this  kind  are  always  so  raw. 

Mrs.  H.  Really,  Pip,  you're  getting  more  absurd 
every  day. 

Capt.  G.  I  don't  think  you  quite  understand  me. 
Shall  I  repeat  it  ? 

Mrs.  H.  No  !  For  pity's  sake  don't  do  that.  It's 
too  terrible,  even  in  fun. 

Capt.  G.  (Aside.)  I'll  let  her  think  it  over  for  a 
while.    But  I  ought  to  be  horsewhipped. 

Mrs.  H.  I  want  to  know  what  you  meant  by  what 
you  said  just  now. 

Capt.  G.    Exactly  what  I  said.    No  less. 

Mrs.  H.  But  what  have  I  done  to  deserve  it  ? 
What  have  I  done  ? 

Capt.  G.  (Aside.)  If  she  only  wouldn't  look  at  me. 
(Aloud  and  very  slowly,  his  eyes  on  his  plate.)  D'you 
remember  that  evening  in  July,  before  the  Rains 
broke,  when  you  said  that  the  end  would  have  to 
come  sooner  or  later — and  you  wondered  for  which  of 
us  it  would  come  first  ? 

Mrs.  H.  Yes  !  I  was  only  joking.  And  you  swore 
that,  as  long  as  there  was  breath  in  your  body,  it 
should  never  come.    And  I  believed  you. 

A  long  pause,  during  which  Mrs.  H.  bows  her  head 
and  rolls  the  bread-twist  into  little  pellets :  G.  stares  at 
the  Oleanders. 

Mrs.  H.     (Throwing  back  her  head  and  laughing 

90 


SHORT    STORIES 

naturally.)    They  train  us  women  well,  don't  they, 
Pip  ?  .  .  . 

Then  the  storm  bursts.  She  demands  the 
reasons  why  their  intimacy  should  come  to  an 
end,  divining  another  woman.  This  Gadsby 
at  first  denies,  but  is  finally  driven  to  admit. 
She  then  tries  to  persuade  him  that  from  no 
other  woman  will  he  ever  receive  the  love  that 
she  has  given  him.    She  breaks  out : 

Don't  tell  me  anything  about  her  !  She  won't  care 
for  you,  and  when  you  come  back,  after  having  made 
an  exhibition  of  yourself,  you'll  find  me  occupied 
with 

Capt.  G.  (Insolently.)  You  couldn't  while  I'm 
alive.  (Aside.)  If  that  doesn't  bring  her  pride  to  her 
rescue,  nothing  will. 

Mrs.  H.  (Drawing  herself  up.)  Couldn't  do  it  ? 
I?  (Softening.)  You're  right.  I  don't  believe  I  could 
— though  you  are  what  you  are — a  coward  and  a  liar 
in  grain.  .  .  . 

She  continues  in  this  ignominious  vein, 
finally,  as  she  rises  to  go,  pleading  : 

When  it's  all  over,  come  back  to  me,  come  back  to 
me,  and  you'll  find  that  you  are  my  Pip  still  ! 

Capt.  G.  (Very  clearly.)  False  move,  and  you  pay 
for  it.    It's  a  girl  ! 

Mrs.  H.  (Rising.)  Then  it  was  true  !  They  said 
— but  I  wouldn't  insult  you  by  asking.  A  girl  !  / 
was  a  girl  not  very  long  ago.  Be  good  to  her,  Pip. 
I  daresay  she  believes  in  you. 

91 


RUDYARD     KIPLING 

Goes  out  with  an  uncertain  smile.  He  watches  her 
through  the  door,  and  settles  into  a  chair  as  the  men 
redistribute  themselves. 

Capt.  G.  Now,  if  there  is  any  Power  who  looks 
after  this  world,  will  He  kindly  tell  me  what  I  have 
done  ?  {Reaching  out  for  the  claret,  and  half  aloud.) 
What  have  I  done  ? 

This  is  the  central  scene  of  the  drama,  the 
rest  of  which  need  not  concern  us.  I  believe 
that  almost  everybody  who  reads  it  will  come 
to  this  conclusion.  It  may  not  be  great  art — 
it  is  not  great  art — but  it  is  powerful,  full  of 
energy  and  movement,  true  to  a  brutal  side 
of  life.  It  deals  with  the  proper  matter  of 
tragedy,  men  and  women  at  odds  with  fate. 
For  Captain  Gadsby  is  not  a  liar  and  coward 
in  grain  as  Mrs.  Herriott  calls  him,  nor  an 
utter  blackguard  as  he  dubs  himself.  He  is 
merely,  as  I  have  said,  a  fine  brute,  who  loves 
Minnie  Threegan  with  a  better  and  less  brutal 
love  than  he  has  ever  before  felt,  and  who  tells 
his  mistress  of  the  change  with  blundering  and 
cruel  stupidity. 

"^  Of  all  the  "  sex  stories,"  perhaps  the  most 
blisteringly  cynical  is  A  Wayside  Comedy. 
There  is  little  pleasure  in  the  mirth  of  the 
observer  of  this  extraordinary  menage  a  cinq. 
The  scene  is  a  little  isolated  station  where  the 

92 


SHORT    STORIES 

English    population    consists    of    Boulte,    an 
engineer,  his  wife  and  Captain  Kurrell. 

Kurrell  had  discovered  that  Mrs.  Boulte  was  the 
one  woman  in  the  world  for  him  and — you  cannot 
blame  them. 

To  these  are  added  Major  Vansuyther  and 
his  beautiful  wife.  Fiercely  jealous  because 
her  lover  is  paying  attentions  to  Mrs.  Vansuy- 
ther, Mrs.  Boulte  in  a  wild  outburst  tells  her 
husband  the  truth,  and  that  she  hates  him. 
She  goes  over  later  to  Mrs.  Vansuyther's 
house,  and  enters  in  time  to  hear  her  husband 
declaring  his  passionate  love  for  that  lady, 
adding  that  he  need  not  consider  his  wife,  who 
is  the  mistress  of  Captain  Kurrell.  Mrs. 
Vansuyther  replies  that  this  is  incredible,  since 
Captain  Kurrell  has  already  told  her  that  he 
cares  not  a  rap  for  Mrs.  Boulte,  and  that  there 
is  nothing  between  them.  She,  poor  woman, 
whose  fatal  beauty  has  been  responsible  for  all 
the  pother,  hates  the  very  sight  of  both  men, 
and  cares  only  for  her  husband.  There  follow^s 
a  scene  in  which  Mrs.  Boulte  faints,  then 
another  between  Boulte  and  Kurrell,  the 
former  madly  jealous,  not  because  he  has  been 
betrayed,  but  because  Kurrell  has  made  love 
to  Mrs.  Vansuyther.  Major  Vansuyther  dis- 
covers nothing,  so  these  four  are  left  to  live 

93 


RUDYARD     KIPLING 

out  their  terms  of  service  under  these  extra- 
ordinary conditions. 

Mrs.  Vansuyther  has  never  told  the  Major,  and  .  .  . 
she  has  been  compelled  to  break  her  vow  of  not  speak- 
ing to  Kurrell.  This  speech  .  .  .  serves  admirably  to 
keep  alight  the  flame  of  jealousy  and  dull  hatred  in 
Boulte's  bosom,  as  it  awakens  the  same  passions  in 
his  wife's  heart.  Mrs.  Boulte  hates  Mrs.  Vansuyther 
because  she  has  taken  Ted  from  her,  and,  in  some 
curious  fashion,  hates  her  because  Mrs.  Vansuyther — 
and  here  the  wife's  eyes  see  far  more  clearly  than  the 
husband's — detests  Ted.  And  Ted — that  gallant 
captain  and  honourable  man — knows  now  that  it  is 
possible  to  hate  a  woman  once  loved,  to  the  verge  of 
wishing  to  silence  her  for  ever  with  blows.  .  .  . 

Boulte  and  he  go  out  tiger-shooting  in  all  friend- 
ship. Boulte  has  put  their  relationship  on  a  most 
satisfactory  footing. 

"  You're  a  blackguard,"  he  says  to  Kurrell,  "  and 
I've  lost  any  self-respect  I  may  ever  have  had  ;  but 
when  you're  with  me,  I  can  feel  certain  that  you're 
not  with  Mrs.  Vansuyther,  or  making  Emma  miser- 
able." 

Kurrell  endures  anything  that  Boulte  may  say  to 
him.  Sometimes  they  are  away  for  three  days  to- 
gether, and  then  the  Major  insists  upon  his  wife  going 
over  to  sit  with  Mrs.  Boulte  ;  although  Mrs.  Van- 
suyther has  repeatedly  declared  that  she  prefers  her 
husband's  company  to  any  in  the  world.  From  the 
way  in  which  she  clings  to  him,  she  would  certainly 
seem  to  be  speaking  the  truth. 

But  of  course,  as  the  Major  says,  "  in  a  little  station 
we  must  all  be  friendly." 

94 


SHORT    STORIES 

The  writer  of  this  edifying  Httle  episode  has 
assuredly,  in  the  cant  phrase,  dipped  his  pen 
in  gall. 

Mr.  Kipling  treats  the  problems  of  sex  in  \X 
other  fashions  than  this,  hove  o'  Women,  for 
example,  if  terrible,  is  free  from  cynicism.  It 
describes  the  overthrow,  by  that  dread  disease 
locomotor  ataxy,  of  a  man  who  has  made  the 
overthrow  of  women  his  peculiar  pastime.  The 
last  scene  where,  dying,  he  is  taken  to  the  arms 
of  the  woman  he  has  married,  deserted,  driven 
into  a  house  of  ill-fame,  has  not  the  less  force 
that  it  is  told  in  the  brogue  of  Mulvaney,  Mr. 
Kipling's  most  beloved  of  soldiers. 

There  is  one  story.  Without  Benefit  of  Clergy,  ^^"^'^^ 
so  tender  and  so  beautiful,  that  it  goes  far  to 
absolve  Mr.  Kipling  from  the  charges  that  have 
been  levelled  against  him,  that  he  could  not 
see — could  not,  at  least,  depict — the  fairest  side 
of  love.  And  it  is  out  of  material  sordid  enough 
that  he  has  woven  this  sad  and  delicate  romance, 
the  tale  of  a  young  Mohammedan  girl,  pur- 
chased like  a  chattel  from  her  mother  by  an 
Englishman.  That  easily  made  contract  has 
been  the  most  important  act  of  John  Holden's 
life,  for  in  the  two  years  since  its  sealing 
Ameera  has  become  "  all  but  all  the  world  in 
his  eyes."  Just  as  it  is  expected  that  "  there 
was  going  to  be  added  to  this  kingdom  a  third 

95 


RUDYARD     KIPLING 

person  whose  arrival  Holden  felt  inclined  to 
resent,"  he  is  ordered  away  on  special  duty. 
His  return,  after  a  period  of  wild  anxiety  and, 
consequently,  ill-managed  work,  is  thus  de- 
scribed : 

Holden  hurried  through  the  courtyard.  A  light 
burned  in  the  upper  room.  His  horse  neighed  in  the 
gateway,  and  he  heard  a  shrill  little  wail  that  sent  all 
the  blood  into  the  apple  of  his  throat.  It  was  a  new 
voice,  but  it  did  not  prove  that  Ameera  was  alive. 

"  Who  is  there  ?  "  he  called  up  the  narrow  brick 
staircase. 

There  was  a  cry  of  delight  from  Ameera,  and  then 
the  voice  of  the  mother,  tremulous  with  old  age  and 
pride — "  We  be  two  women  and — the — man — ^thy — 
son." 

Thenceforward  Holden,  whose  sole  thought 
has  been  till  then  for  Ameera,  is  wrapped  up 
in  the  child  as  well.  The  days  of  the  little  boy's 
early  childhood  are  described  as  only  Mr.  Kip- 
ling, who  loves  children  more  than  any  writer 
of  to-day,  can  describe  them.  Amecra's  lullaby, 
charged  as  it  seems  with  coming  tragedy,  takes 
one  by  the  heart. 

Oh  crow  !    Go  crow  !    Baby's  sleeping  sound, 

And  the  wild  plums  grow  in  the  jungle,  only  a  penny  a 

pound. 
Only  a  penny  a  pound,  haha,  only  a  penny  a  pound. 

But  "  the  delight  of  that  life  was  too  perfect 
to  endure."     The  "  little  lord  of  the  house  " 

96 


SHORT    STORIES 

was  carried  off,  almost  ere  his  parents  knew 
that  he  ailed,  by  the  seasonal  autumn  fever. 

His  mother  nearly  died  of  grief,  and  Holden 
was  himself  only  saved  from  the  blackest  of 
despair  by  the  necessity  of  comforting  her,  of 
assuring  her  that  no  blame  for  the  calamity 
could  be  laid  to  her  door,  of  gradually  winning 
her  back  again  to  life  and  reason. 

This  he  accomplished  little  by  Httle,  while 
his  own  pain  he  numbed  by  fierce  attention  to 
his  work.  Ameera  declared  that  it  was  because 
they  had  loved  their  child  so  much  and  pro- 
claimed their  love  so  loudly  that  he  had  been 
taken  from  them.  They  would  make  no  pro- 
testations of  delight,  would  hide  their  love  from 
the  jealous  God. 

That  even  was  without  avail.  After  a  few 
months  came  an  outbreak  of  black  cholera. 
Ameera  scornfully  refused  to  follow  the  white 
tiiem-log  to  the  hills,  and,  inevitably  as  Holden 
had  felt,  the  fiend  caught  her.  Holden  went 
to  her  only  just  in  time,  for  the  black  cholera 
moves  swiftly. 

The  soul  came  back  a  little  and  the  lips  moved. 
Holden  bent  down  to  listen.  "  Keep  nothing  of  mine," 
said  Ameera.  "  Take  no  hair  from  my  head.  She 
would  make  thee  burn  it  later  on.  That  flame  I  should 
feel.  Lower  !  Stoop  lov%'er  !  Remember  only  that  I 
was  thine  and  bore  thee  a  son.    Though  thou  wed  a 

G  97 


RUDYARD     KIPLING 

white  woman  to-morrow,  the  pleasure  of  receiving  in 
thy  arms  thy  first  son  is  taken  from  thee  for  ever. 
Remember  me  when  thy  son  is  born — the  one  that 
shall  carry  thy  name  before  all  men.  His  misfortmies 
be  on  my  head.  I  bear  witness — I  bear  witness  " — 
the  lips  were  forming  the  words  on  his  ear — "  that 
there  is  no  God  but — thee,  beloved  !  " 
Then  she  died. 

Here  again  is  true  tragedy.  Mr.  Kipling 
does  not  deal  with  mawkishness,  but  he  is  not 
afraid  to  play  upon  the  feelings  of  his  readers 
in  a  manner  not  common  with  the  writers  of 
his  generation.  To-day  we  are  in  some  danger 
of  confusing  sentiment  with  sentimentality,  of 
making  our  literature  juiceless  and  marrowless 
by  reason  of  a  dread  of  unbaring  hearts  too 
freely,  of  giving  too  much  space  to  a  chronicle 
of  the  emotions. 

Such  stories  as  Without  Benefit  of  Clergy  are 

too  rare  in  Mr.  Kipling's  collection.     It  must 

be  admitted  that  the  tone  of  most  of  his  tales 

that  deal  with  women  resembles  rather  that  of 

A    Wayside   Comedy.     Woman   is   to   him   a 

\^    /^mysterious   being,   not  to  be  trusted   wholly 

because  not  wholly  to  be  understood,  and  not 

■  to  be  understood  just  because  she  is  primitive, 

since,  as  he  often  points  out,  it  is  easier  to 

\  follow  the  line  of  thought  of  the  most  complex 

!  people  than  of  the  simplest.    The  thoughts  and 

98 


SHORT     STORIES 

actions  of  Man  are,  save  at  rare  moments  when 
some  smouldering  fire  below  the  crust  bursts 
through,  such  as  may  be  expected  from  his  ' 
circumstances  and  his  state  of  civilization. 
Woman  is  a  simpler  machine,  in  which  the 
function  of  life-creation  takes  a  larger  part. 
She  is  governed  by  more  primitive  instincts, 
instincts  more  closely  connected  with  race  and 
sex.  She  appears  illogical,  because  she  moves 
in  obedience  to  these  instincts,  which  cannot 
be  apprehended  by  the  processes  of  logic,  which 
seem  like  straws  in  the  wind,  but  which,  we 
may  believe,  are  the  tables  of  the  law  of  human 
progress. 

I  do  not  pretend  that  Mr.  Kipling  has  ever 
put  his  opinions  into  any  such  words  as  these, 
though  he  is  not  far  from  them  in  that  poem 
which  declares  : 

That  the  female  of  the  species  is  more  deadly  than  the 
male. 

I  have  simply  striven  to  describe  the  feelings 
which,  as  it  seems  to  me,  underlie  his  sketches 
of  women.  These  opinions  seem  to  me  as 
exaggerated  and  as  faulty  as  those  of  the 
extreme  exponents  of  Feminism,  who  will  have 
it  that  Man  and  Woman  are  to  all  intents  and 
purposes  the  same  mentally  and  morally. 
It  is,  at  all  events,  something  of  a  relief  to 
99 


y/ 


Xl 


RUDYARD    KIPLING 

turn  from  Mr.  Kipling's  treatment  of  women 
to  his  studies  of  young  English  officers.  He 
loves  the  type,  and  draws  it  with  a  loving  hand. 
One  can  easily  fashion  a  composite  picture  of 
his  ideal  young  man  from  half  a  dozen  portraits 
of  subalterns.  Bobby  Wick  of  Only  a  Subal- 
tern, with  his  "  ugly,  wholesome  phiz,"  the  boy 
who  fights  the  cholera  in  his  regiment  by  the 
sheer  force  of  his  personality,  and,  when  it  has 
been  got  under,  himself  succumbs  to  it,  would 
be  one.  Tommy  Dodd  would  be  another,  of 
whom  in  The  Head  of  ike  District  the  barest 
glimpse  is  seen,  shaking  with  fever  and  sending 
his  native  troopers  forth  to  quell  a  hill  insur- 
rection in  this  manner  : 

"  O,  men  !  If  you  die  you  will  go  to  Hell.  There- 
fore endeavour  to  keep  alive.  But  if  you  go  to  Hell 
that  place  cannot  be  hotter  than  this  place,  and  we 
are  not  told  that  we  shall  there  suffer  from  fever. 
Consequently  be  not  afraid  of  dying.  File  out  there  !  " 
They  grinned,  and  went. 

Yet  another  would  be  the  gallant,  simple  3''oung 
knight  Strickland,  hero  of  A  Deal  in  Cotton, 
who  won  the  heart  of  the  great  Arab  slave- 
dealer,  the  scourge  of  all  Central  Africa. 

But  there  is  scarce  need  to  draw  such  a  com- 
posite picture,  for  there  is  one  character  that 
we  can  feel  to  be  his  creator's  unparagoned 
hero,    his    conception    of    the    perfection    of 

100 


SHORT    STORIES 

chivalry  at  this  present  time.     A  many  people, 
besides  the  married  lady  who  kissed  him  as  he 
lay  asleep  in  his  cabin,  have  fallen  in  love  with 
The  Brushwood  Boy.    In  effect,  everyone  must 
love  him,  though  he  is  by  no  means  everyone's 
ideal.     He  is  simple  and  modest  and  brave, 
intelligent  if  not  intellectual,  as  eager  in  his 
play  as  in  his  work.    He  is  courteous  to  women, 
but  cares  not  very  much  for  their  company, 
because  he  is  rather  afraid  of  them.    When  he 
does  fall  in  love,  with  the  girl  who  has  been 
the  partner  of  his  dreams  from  infancy,   he 
does  so  in  as  knightly  a  fashion  as  is  consistent 
with  his  reserved  English  character.     He  is, 
above  all,  an  English  hero.     There  is  in  him 
nothing  of  the  heau  sabreur,  nothing  of  the 
errant  charm  of  Stendhal's  Fabrice  del  Dongo. 
The  problems  that  rack  Tolstoy's  Levin  and 
Count  Vronsky  never  present  themselves  to 
him.    He  has  never  troubled  about  the  culte 
du  moi  of  M.  Barres.      He  is  just  the  finest 
flower  that  the  gardens  of  Eton  and  Sandhurst, 
as  they  are  at  present  constituted,  can  produce. 
Mr.  KipHng  loves  to  contrast  his  boy  soldiers 
with  other  types,  always  to  the  advantage  of 
the  former.  The  portrait  of  the  novelist  Eustace 
Cleever,  by  no  means  an  unpleasant  or  gro- 
tesque figure,  is  drawn  beside  that  of  a  group 
of  young  men  on  leave  from  India,  just  for  this 

101 


RUDYARD     KIPLING 

effect.  He  has,  after  some  trouble,  induced 
the  young  men  to  talk.  Says  the  Infant  to 
Cleever  : 

"  The  dacoits  were  having  a  first-class  time  y'know 
— filling  women  up  with  kerosine  and  setting  'em 
alight,  and  burning  villages,  and  crucifying  people." 

The  wonder  in  Eustace  Cleever's  eyes  deepened. 
He  could  not  quite  realize  that  the  cross  still  existed 
in  any  form. 

"  Have  you  ever  seen  a  crucifixion  ?  "  said  he. 

It  is  really  but  another  example  of  that 
phase  in  Mr.  Kipling  that  I  have  already 
pointed  out  so  often,  this  admiration  of  the 
man  of  the  sword  by  the  man  of  the  pen. 

I  remember  one  critic  v^ho  declared  very 
justly  that  in  his  praise  of  the  brilliant  young 
soldier,  swift  to  act  in  emergency,  a  glutton 
for  responsibility,  he  spoke  as  if  the  whole 
British  Army  were  officered  by  such.  Whereas, 
said  the  critic,  we  all  know  how  many  there 
are — South  Africa  showed  it  only  too  clearly — 
who  in  truth  know  their  duty,  but  little  out- 
side it,  who  are  sunk  in  routine  and  have  their 
vision  dulled  by  the  smoke  of  pipe-clay ; 
honourable  and  courageous  men  enough,  but 
not  first-class  soldiers  because  lacking  in  initia- 
tive and  imagination.  I  think  Mr.  Kipling 
had  something  of  this  feeling  before  the  Boer 
War,  and  that  he  was  as  sadly  disillusioned  as 

102 


SHORT    STORIES 

any  of  us.  In  A  Sahibs'  War,  an  Indian  observer 
has  some  far  from  flattering  comments  to  make 
upon  our  methods,  but  in  the  very  amusing 
story  The  Captive,  dehberate  fun  is  poked  at 
the  British  officer  in  the  field. 

The  story  is  told  by  an  American  adventurer 
who  has  put  his  patent  quick-firing  gun  at  the 
disposal  of  the  Boers.  He  is  serving  under  a 
certain  Commandant  Van  Zyl,  the  sworn 
friend  of  the  British  general  opposing  him. 
The  two  call  each  other  by  their  Christian 
names,  and  the  rival  forces  exist  in  a  ludicrous 
state  of  communion  and  friendship.  The 
American  describes  the  operations  thus  : 

"  The  way  we  worked  lodge  was  this  way.  The 
General,  he  had  his  breakfast  at  8.45  a.m.  to  the  tick. 
He  might  have  been  a  Long  Island  commuter.  At 
8.42  a.m.  I'd  go  down  to  the  Thirty-fomth  Street 
ferry  to  meet  him — I  mean  I'd  see  the  Zigler  into 
position  at  two  thousand  (I  began  at  three  thousand, 
but  that  was  cold  and  distant) — and  blow  him  off  to 
two  full  hoppers — eighteen  rounds — just  as  they  were 
bringing  in  his  coffee.  If  his  crowd  was  busy  cele- 
brating the  anniversary  of  Waterloo  or  the  last  royal 
kid's  birthday,  they'd  open  on  me  with  two  guns 
(I'll  tell  you  about  them  later  on),  but  if  they  were 
disengaged  they'd  all  stand  to  their  horses  and  pile 
on  the  ironmongery,  and  washers,  and  typewriters, 
and  five  weeks'  grub,  and  in  half  an  hour  they'd  sail 
out  after  me  and  the  rest  of  Van  Zyl's  boys  ;  lying 
down  and  firing  till  11.45  a.m.  or  maybe  high  noon. 

103 


RUDYARD     KIPLING 

Then  we'd  go  from  labour  to  refreshment,  resooming 
at  2  p.m.  and  batthng  till  tea-time.  Tuesday  and 
Friday  was  the  General's  moving  days.  He'd  trek 
ahead  ten  or  fifteen  miles,  and  we'd  loaf  around  his 
flankers  and  exercise  the  ponies  a  piece." 

Now  this  is  exceedingly  fine  satirical  writing, 
but  there  is  in  it  some  of  the  irritation  of  the 
man  who  has  seen  his  gods — not  cast  down  for 
that  they  never  were — but  prove  themselves 
rather  ordinary  people,  unable  to  subsist  with- 
out afternoon  tea  like  mere  mortal  men.  The 
men  who  fought  Commandant  Van  Zyl  in  this 
quiet  and  gentlemanly  fashion  would  never, 
like  Mulvaney's  friends  who  took  Lungtungpen 
stripped  naked,  "  take  St.  Pethersburg  in  their 
dhrawers."  But  at  least  that  war  has  shown 
us  that  we  wanted  to  be  shaken  up. 

Something  has  been  said,  in  considering 
Barrack-Room  Ballads,  of  Mr.  Kipling's  treat- 
ment of  the  private  soldier.  It  is  now  time  to 
discuss  it  with  reference  to  his  short  stories. 
A  discussion  of  Mr.  Kipling's  soldiers  means  a 
discussion  of  that  famous  trinity  Privates 
Mulvaney,  Learoyd  and  Ortheris,  of  whom 
the  first  is  incomparably  the  greatest. 

Terence  Mulvaney  is  undoubtedly  the  best- 
known  of  all  his  author's  characters.  I  have 
heard  it  claimed  as  a  proof  of  Dickens'  un- 
equalled  genius   that   we    should    know   Mr. 

104 


RUDYARD  KIPLING 
[From  a  Drawing  by  B.  IkviNK  Hately) 

The  Viscomte  Robert  d'Humieres  in  his  study  of  the  English  and  their  ways, 
"Through  Isle  and  Empire,"  gives  a  thumb-nt.il  picture  of  Kipling  which  gives 
one  a  clear  idea  of  his  personal  appearance  It  is  the  best  description  of  the 
famous  novelist  that  has  been  written  :  "He  does  not  look  more  than  thirt)'. 
Nicholson's  print  makes  him  seem  older  than  he  is.  Collier's  portrait  plone 
gives  the  frank,  open,  and  youthful  expression  of  the  original.  His  eyes  in 
particular  hold  the  attention  behind  the  immovable  glasses,  full  of  light,  sym- 
pathy, and  gaiety,  thirsting  to  reflect  life  in  all  its  forms.  The  chestnut  hair  is 
cut  straight  over  the  forehead.  The  thick-set,  lather  plump  figure  possesses  a 
singular  agility  with  none  of  the  somewhat  wooden  gestures  of  the  average 
Englishman." 


SHORT    STORIES 

Micawber  and  Mr.  Pickwick  if  we  were  to  meet 
them  in  the  street  to-morrow.  That,  of  course, 
is  nonsense.  We  should  not  know  infinitely 
greater  creations,  Anna  Karenina  or  Squire 
Western  or  P'abrice  del  Dongo,  though  we 
might  make  a  guess  at  my  Uncle  Toby,  and  I 
hope  and  believe  that  I,  at  least,  her  most 
devoted  slave,  would  not  pass  by  Mademoiselle 
de  Maupin.  But  the  fact  that  Dickens,  with  the 
aid  of  an  illustrator  who  was  also  a  genius,  has 
made  some  unusual  and  grotesque  types 
familiar  to  men  as  their  brothers  and  sisters, 
is  proof  of  his  vast  skill  in  the  depiction  of 
outward  appearances  and  characteristics.  Mr. 
Kipling  has  had  a  like  success  with  Mulvaney, 
for  I  believe  that  most  of  us  would  know  that 
thirsty,  war-scarred  giant  had  we  the  good 
fortune  to  happen  upon  him. 

Mulvaney  is  the  perfect  type  of  the  Irish  V 
soldier,  with  all  his  good  qualities,  resource, 
humour,  courage  at  their  highest,  and  also  all 
his  weaknesses,  chief  of  which  is  of  course  the 
unconquerable  lure  of  the  canteen.  He  has 
been  made  a  corporal  earlj^,  and  has  splendid 
prospects.  But  he  has  been  "  rejuced  afther- 
wards  "  and  is  now  the  best  soldier  in  the 
regiment — when  sober — and  when  drunk  to  be 
passed  over  at  parade  by  officer  and  sergeant, 
if  it  be  humanly  possible  to  do  so.    He  is  loved 

105 


RUDYARD     KIPLING 

and  laughed  at,  and  he  is  not  unconscious  of 
his  shame. 

"  An'  whin  I'm  let  off  in  ord'ly-room  through  some 
thrick  of  the  tongue  an'  a  ready  answer  an'  the  ould 
man's  mercy,  is  ut  smiHn'  I  feel  whin  I  fall  away  an' 
go  back  to  Dinah  Shadd,  thryin'  to  carry  ut  all  off  as 
a  joke  ?  Not  I  !  'Tis  hell  to  me,  dumb  hell  through 
ut  all ;  an'  next  time  whin  the  fit  comes  I  will  be  as 
bad  again.  Good  cause  the  reg'ment  has  to  know  me 
for  the  best  soldier  in  ut.  Better  cause  have  I  to 
know  mesilf  for  the  worst  man." 

He  is  the  unquestioned  head  of  the  con- 
federacy of  three,  because  he  is  the  fount  of  its 
ideas,  its  commander-in-chief  and  intelligence 
department  at  once.  "  'Tis  me,"  he  explains, 
"  has  to  lie  awake  av  nights  schamin'  an' 
plottin'  for  the  three  av  us."  His  exploits  are 
without  number.  He  had  a  hand  in  that 
Taking  of  Lungtungpen,  when  a  lieutenant  and 
some  twenty  soldiers  stripped  themselves  naked, 
swam  a  river,  and  fell  upon  the  village  with  the 
strength  of  demigods.  Of  this  story  one  of  our 
critics,  who,  if  he  can  be  as  healthily  enthusi- 
astic as  any,  yet  never  loses  his  head,  has 
pronounced  this  judgment  : 

"  Those  who  have  not  read  this  little  master- 
piece have  yet  before  them  the  pleasure  of 
becoming  acquainted  with  one  of  the  best 
short  stories  not  merely  in  English,  but  in  any 
language." 

106 


SHORT     STORIES 

It  was  he  who,  after  he  had  left  the  army, 
gave  his  unrivalled  aid  to  the  young  officer 
bringing  down  The  Big  Drunk  Draf  to  the  sea. 
And  he  was  the  hero  of  that  crazy,  side-splitting 
escapade  told  in  The  Incarnation  of  Krishna 
Mulvaney,  when  he  stole  a  palanquin,  was 
packed  in  it  on  to  a  train  while  dead  drunk, 
carried  to  Benares,  at  that  moment  full  of 
palanquins  bearing  the  queens  of  India  to  a 
festival  at  the  temple  of  Prithi-Devi,  watched 
the  women  praying,  and  finally,  clothing  him- 
self in  the  broidered  lining  of  the  palanquin, 
appeared  before  them  as  Krishna  himself.  The 
improbability  of  this  story  simply  shouts  at 
one  as  one  reads,  which  has  led  certain  dull 
people  to  condemn  it,  and  Francis  Adams  to 
rank  it  with  his  really  poor  stories  such  as  The 
Lang  Men  o'  Larut.  But  those  with  a  real 
sense  of  humour,  who  have  been  by  this  mad 
tale  reduced  to  most  painful  and  helpless 
laughter,  will  be  well  content  to  do  without 
probability. 

Private  Stanley  Ortheris,  the  little  Cockney, 
is  as  interesting  in  his  way.  If  we  love  him 
less  it  is  because  the  Irishman  is  more  sympa- 
thetic than  the  Londoner.  Ortheris  is  the 
crack  shot  and  the  humorist  of  the  regiment, 
with  far  fewer  weaknesses  than  his  friend  and 
apparently  without  emotion.     Yet  he  too  has 

107 


RUDYARD     KIPLING 

his  periods  of  remorse  and  affliction,  when  he 
is  not  a  pleasant  companion.  Learoyd,  the 
"  six  and  a  half  feet  of  slow-moving,  heavy- 
footed  Yorkshireman,  born  on  the  wolds,  bred 
in  the  dales,  and  educated  chiefly  among  the 
carriers'  carts  at  the  back  of  York  railway 
station,"  is  the  least  satisfactory/^  of  the  three. 
We  are  told  that  he  had  for  "  chief  virtue  an 
unmitigated  patience  which  helped  him  to  win 
fights,"  but  he  takes  very  small  part  in  the 
discussions  that  reveal  the  personality  of  the 
other  two.  It  is,  however,  from  a  story,  On 
Greenhow  Hill,  of  which  he  is  hero,  that  the 
best  glimpse  of  the  three  and  their  relations  is 
to  be  gained. 

The  episode  began  with  the  nightly  disturb- 
ance of  the  camp,  on  a  ridge  of  the  Himalayas, 
by  a  deserter  from  a  native  regiment.  Think- 
ing that  he  was  beside  the  native  wing  of  the 
camp  he  fired  at  intervals  and  shouted  to  his 
old  comrades  to  come  out  and  fight  against  the 
English.  Ortheris  and  Mulvaney  had  words  as 
to  the  advisability  of  getting  up  and  pointing 
out  his  mistake,  Mulvaney  declaring  that  "  'tis 
rainin'  entrenchin'  tools  outside." 

"  Wot's  the  good  of  argifying  ?  Put  a  bullet  into  the 
swine  !     'E's  keepin'  us  awake  !  "  said  another  voice. 

A  subaltern  shouted  angrily,  and  a  dripping  sentry 
whined  from  the  darkness — 

108 


SHORT     STORIES 

"  'Tain't  no  good,  sir.  I  can't  see  'im.  'E's  'idin' 
somewhere  down  'ill." 

Ortheris  tumbled  out  of  his  blanket.  "  Shall  I  try 
to  get  'im,  sir  ?  "  said  he, 

"  No,"  was  the  answer.  "  Lie  down.  I  won't  have 
the  whole  camp  shooting  all  round  the  clock.  Tell  him 
to  go  and  pot  his  friends." 

Ortheris  considered  for  a  moment.  Then,  putting 
his  head  under  the  tent  wall,  he  called,  as  a  'bus 
conductor  calls  in  a  block,  "  'Igher  up,  there  !  'Igher 
up!" 

The  men  laughed,  and  the  laughter  was  carried 
down  wind  to  the  deserter.  .  .  . 

"  An'  that's  all  right,"  said  Ortheris,  withdrawing  i 
his  head.  ..."  S'elp  me  Gawd,  tho',   that  man's   \  ^ 
not  fit  to  live — messin'  with  my  beauty-sleep  this    \ 
way." 

"  Go  out  and  shoot  him  in  the  morning,  then,"  said     I 
the  subaltern  incautiously. 

On  the  morrow  Mulvaney  and  Ortheris  went 
to  lie  out  for  the  deserter  as  he  came  up  a 
watercourse  to  the  camp.  Ortheris,  the  expert, 
selected  the  range. 

"  This  is  something  like,"  he  said  luxuriously, 
"  Wot  a  'evinly  clear  drop  for  a  bullet  acrost.  How 
much  d'you  make  it,  Mulvaney  ?  " 

"  Seven  hunder.  Maybe  a  trifle  less,  bekaze  the 
air's  so  thin." 

After  a  sighting  shot  to  make  sure,  and 
joined  by  Learoyd,  they  lay  down  to  smoke 
and  wait.  The  stolid  Yorkshireman,  reminded 
by  a  spur  in  front  of  them  of  the  moors  at  home, 

109 


RUDYARD    KIPLING 

came  out  of  his  shell  and  told  of  his  early 
romance.  When  a  boy,  driving  a  mining 
wagon-team,  he  had  come  by  a  broken  arm 
and  all  but  a  cracked  skull  by  falling  off  a 
stone  wall  after  drinking  too  much  ale.  He 
was  carried  insensible  to  the  house  of  Jesse 
Rowntree,  a  leading  light  of  the  Primitive 
Methodists,  and  nursed  by  Jessie  Rowntree's 
daughter  'Liza.  Under  the  influence  of  Jesse, 
of  the  preacher,  the  Rev.  Amos  Barraclough, 
still  more  of  'Liza,  he  became  "  converted," 
attended  regularly  at  chapel  and  took  the  bass 
part  in  Jesse's  oratorio.  Yet  his  heart  was 
never  wholly  in  the  business  ;  he  dreaded  ever 
the  "  cast-iron  pride  o'  respectability  "  of  these 
folk.  This  led  the  three  to  discuss  the  atti- 
tude of  the  lower -middle  class  to  soldiers. 
Said  Learoyd  : 

"  They'd  tell  tales  in  th'  Sunday-school  o'  bad  lads 
as  had  been  thumped  and  brayed  for  bird-nesting  o' 
Sundays  and  playin'  truant  o'  week-days,  and  how 
they  took  to  wrestlin',  dog-fightin',  rabbit-runnin', 
and  drinkin',  till  at  last,  as  if  'twere  a  hepitaph  on  a 
gravestone,  they  damned  him  across  th'  moors  wi' 
'  an'  then  he  went  and  'listed  for  a  soldier,'  an'  they'd 
all  fetch  a  deep  breath,  and  throw  up  their  eyes  like 
a  hen  drinkin'." 

"  Fwhy  is  ut  ?  "  said  Mulvaney,  bringing  down  his 
hand  on  his  thigh  with  a  crack.  "  In  the  name  av 
God,  fwhy  is  ut  ?  I've  seen  ut,  tu.  They  cheat  an' 
they  swindle  an'  they  lie  an'  they  slander,  an'  fifty 

110 


SHORT    STORIES 

things  fifty  times  worse  ;  but  the  last  an'  the  worst 
by  their  reckonin'  is  to  serve  the  Widdy  honest.  It's 
hke  the  talk  av  childer — seein'  things  all  round." 

"  Plucky  lot  of  fightin'  good  fights  of  whatsername 
they'd  do  if  we  didn't  see  they  had  a  quiet  place  to 
fight  in.  ,  .  .  I've  bin  turned  out  of  a  measly  arf- 
license  pub  down  Lambeth  way,  full  o'  greasy  kebmen, 
'fore  now,"  said  Ortheris  with  an  oath. 

"  Maj'be  you  were  dhrunk,"  said  Mulvaney  sooth- 
ingly. 

"  Worse  nor  that.  The  Forders  were  drunk.  / 
was  wearin'  the  Queen's  uniform." 

Were  I  to  write  a  chapter  to  describe  the 
indignation  at  their  treatment  that  Mr.  Kipling 
puts  into  the  mouths  of  his  soldiers,  I  could  not 
do  it  so  well  as  by  the  quotation  of  this  passage. 

Learoyd  went  on  to  tell  how  his  friendship 
for  the  preacher  turned  to  hatred  when  he 
began  to  fear  that  he  would  win  the  hand  of 
'Liza,  who  was  ailing.  One  day  he  took  him 
down  the  pit  with  him,  and  suddenly,  as  it 
grew  dark,  a  fierce  passion  surged  up  within 
him,  and  he  seized  Barraclough  and  held  him 
over  a  bottomless  hole. 

"  Now,  lad,"  I  says,  "  it's  to  be  one  or  t'other  on 
us — thee  or  me — for  'Liza  Rowntree.  Why,  isn't  thee 
afraid  for  thysen  ?  "  I  says,  for  he  were  still  i'  my  arms 
as  a  sack.  '  Nay  ;  I'm  but  afraid  for  thee,  my  poor 
lad,  as  knows  naught,'  says  he.  .  .  .  '  'Liza  Rown- 
tree's  for  neither  on  us,  nor  for  nobody  o'  this  earth. 
Dr.  Warbottom  says — and  he  knows  her,  and  her 

111 


RUDYARD     KIPLING 

mother  before  her — that  she  is  in  a  dechne,  and  she 
cannot  Hve  six  months  longer.  He's  known  it  for 
many  a  day.  Steady,  John  !  Steady  !  '  says  he. 
'  And  that  weak  httle  man  pulled  me  further  back 
and  set  me  again'  him,  and  talked  it  all  over  quiet 
and  still,  me  turnin'  a  bunch  o'  candles  in  my  hand, 
and  counting  them  ower  and  ower  again  as  I  listened." 

The  blow  stunned  him,  and  when  Jesse  took 
his  daughter  to  Bradford,  the  air  of  Greenhow 
being  too  keen,  he  fell  to  moping,  and  gave  up 
the  chapel.  In  the  winter  he  threw  up  his  job 
and  went  to  Bradford.  'Liza  was  dying,  he  was 
told,  and  her  father  would  not  let  him  see  her. 
Going  straight  from  the  house  he  met  a  recruit- 
ing-sergeant and  enlisted.  Next  morning  he 
returned  to  say  farewell,  the  ribbons  in  his 
hat.  Jesse  bade  him  begone  with  his  "  devil's 
colours  fiyin',"  but  'Liza,  hearing  his  voice, 
commanded  that  he  should  be  allowed  up. 

"  Her  eyes  were  all  alive  wi'  light,  and  her  hair  was 
thick  on  the  pillow  round  her,  but  her  cheeks  were 
thin — thin  to  frighten  a  man  that's  strong.  '  Nay, 
father,  yo  mayn't  say  th'  devil's  colours.  Them 
ribbons  is  pretty.'  An'  she  held  out  her  hands  for 
th'  hat,  an'  she  put  all  straight  as  a  woman  will  wi' 
ribbons.  '  Nay,  but  what  they're  pretty,'  she  says. 
'  Eh,  but  I'd  ha'  liked  to  see  thee  i'  thy  red  coat,  John, 
for  thou  was  alius  my  own  lad — my  very  own  lad, 
and  none  else.' 

"  She  lifted  up  her  arms,  and  they  come  round  my 
112 


SHORT    STORIES 

neck  i'  a  gentle  grip,  and  they  slacked  away,  and  she 
seemed  fainting.  '  Now  yo  mun  get  away,  lad,'  says 
Jesse,  and  I  picked  up  my  hat  and  I  came  downstairs." 

The  recruiting-sergeant,  "  one  o'  them  smart, 
bustlin'  chaps,"  tells  him  that,  having  seen  his 
sweetheart,  he  must  have  a  quart  and  do  his 
best  to  forget  her.  "  And,"  says  Learoyd,  "  I've 
been  forgettin'  her  ever  since." 

He  threw  away  the  wilted  clump  of  white  violets 
as  he  spoke.  Ortheris  suddenly  rose  to  his  knees,  his 
rifle  at  his  shoulder,  and  peered  across  the  valley  in 
the  clear  afternoon  light.  His  chin  cuddled  the  stock, 
and  there  was  a  twitching  of  the  muscles  of  the  right 
cheek  as  he  sighted  ;  Private  Stanley  Ortheris  was 
engaged  on  his  business.  A  speck  of  white  crawled 
up  the  watercourse. 

"  See  that  beggar  ?  .  .  .  Got  'im." 

Seven  hundred  yards  away,  and  a  full  two  hundred 
down  the  hillside,  the  deserter  of  the  Aurangabadis 
pitched  forward,  rolled  down  a  red  rock,  and  lay  very 
still,  with  his  face  in  a  clump  of  blue  gentians,  while 
a  big  raven  flapped  out  of  the  pine  wood  to  make 
investigation. 

"  That's  a  clean  shot,  little  man,"  said  Mulvaney. 

Learoyd  thoughtfully  watched  the  smoke  clear 
away.  "  Happen  there  was  a  lass  tewed  up  wi'  him, 
too,"  said  he. 

Ortheris  did  not  reply.  He  was  staring  across  the 
valley,  with  the  smile  of  the  artist  who  looks  on  the 
completed  work. 

I  have  quoted  from  this  story  at  great  length, 
H  113 


RUDYARD     KIPLING 

not  because  it  stands  among  its  creator's  best, 
but  because  it  is  perhaps  the  most  representa- 
tive of  the  soldier  tales.     It  is  an  example  of 
Mr.  Kipling's  skill  and  good  faith  in  giving  us 
all  sides  of  a  soldier's  character,  without  false 
reticence  or  idealization.     Nothing  could  ex- 
ceed the  contrast  of  Learoyd's  tenderness  and 
emotion  as  he  tells  of  the  death  of  his  sweet- 
heart, and  the  cruelty  of  Ortheris  next  instant, 
gloating  over  the  death  of  the  deserter — whom, 
be  it  remembered,  he  was  under  no  necessity 
to  shoot — feeling  an  "  artist  who  looks  on  the 
completed  work." 
**S*^  f     And  such  contrasts  are  true  of  these  men. 
^They  are,  as  Mr.  Kipling  reminds  us,  primitive 
men  caged  in  by  a  few  very  simple  regulations. 
"  Their  duty  is  to  keep  themselves  and  their 
accoutrements    specklessly    clean,    to    refrain 
i  from  getting  drunk  more  often  than  is  necessary, 
I  to  obey  their  superiors  and  to  pray  for  a  war." 
']  All  these  things  they   accomplished   without 
j  changing    their    natures    or    becoming    very 
!  civilized.     They  were,   says  sarcastically  Mr. 
j  Kipling,   who  loves  them  very  well,   "in  no 
'  sense  refined,  nor  to  be  admitted  to  the  outer- 
door  mats  of  decent  folk."    Those  who  do  not 
share  his  love,  who  so  much  abominate  rough- 
ness and  drunkenness  that  they  find  no  pallia- 
tives even  in  steady  courage  and  good  faith 

114 


SHORT     STORIES 

and  esprit  de  corps,  will  yet  be  prepared  to 
admit  that,  were  they  in  some  crisis  where  the 
ordinary  rules  of  civilization  were  set  aside, 
there  be  none  they  had  rather  find  at  their 
elbows  than  Privates  Mulvaney,  Ortheris  and 
Learoyd. 

I  shall  say  a  few  words  on  the  attitude  of  \y 
these  men  to  their  discipline,  because  it  is  that 
of  every  old  soldier  who  has  the  reputation  of 
being  a  good  man.  It  is  something  apart  from 
all  discussion,  never  to  be  questioned.  They 
.may  despise  some  callow  youth,  twenty  years 
their  junior,  set  to  command  them.  They  may 
know  their  drill  and  the  tactics  of  hill-warfare 
an  hundredfold  better  than  he,  and  be  aware 
of  their  superior  knowledge.  But  they  will 
obey  his  commands  cheerily,  and,  if  it  be  pos- 
sible, give  to  him  in  a  difficulty  aid  that  will 
never  be  set  to  their  score.  All  this  is  to  them 
an  axiom  of  their  service.  Ortheris,  when  a 
young  fool  strikes  him,  "  the  best  soldier  of 
his  inches  "  in  the  regiment,  with  his  cane,  and 
tears  his  tunic,  lies  to  a  superior  officer  as  to 
the  cause  of  the  accident.  His  whole  soul  is 
filled  with  murderous  hatred  of  the  man,  but 
he  knows  full  well  that  the  telling  of  the  truth 
would  drive  the  officer  from  the  regiment,  and 
that  is  unthinkable.  How  the  officer,  by  a 
stroke  of  genius,  salves  the  wound  in  the  only 

115 


RUDYARD    KIPLING 

possible  way  by  granting  the  private  the  right 
of  personal  combat — when  they  are  miles  away 
from  barracks — and  wins  his  undying  admira- 
tion by  knocking  him  doAvn,  is  told  in  His 
Private  Honour. 

There  are  few  soldiers  who  need  be  discussed 
once  we  have  made  the  acquaintance  of  these 
three.  The  Mutiny  of  the  Mavericks  is  the  tale 
of  an  Irish  emissary  from  New  York  sent  to 
induce  a  regiment  of  his  countrymen  to  revolt 
against  the  English.  They  make  a  vast  parade 
of  revolution,  drink  his  beer  by  the  firkin,  and 
finally,  when  a  hill-war  breaks  out,  drive  him 
to  death  on  the  Afghan  knives.  It  is  more 
brutal  and  less  interesting  than  the  majority 
of  Mr.  Kipling's  stories,  but  has  one  amusing 
and  fertile-brained  scoundrel  in  it,  the  Ulster- 
man  Dan  Grady.  In  the  South  African  tales 
appear  a  few  more,  while  in  Their  Lawful 
Occasions  is  one  most  engaging  sailor,  Mr. 
Moorshed,  who  makes  us  regret  that  Mr. 
Kipling  has  not  turned  more  of  his  attention 
to  the  sister  service. 
^  Mr.  Kipling  sets  on  the  title-page  of  one  of 
his  best  books  of  short  stories,  Life's  Handicap, 
the  native  proverb,  "  I  met  a  hundred  men  on 
the  road  to  Delhi  and  they  were  all  my  brothers." 
That  motto  is  not  strictly  appropriate — at 
least,  if  he  could  make  the  statement  of  the 

116 


SHORT    STORIES 

Delhi  road,  he  could  not  of  the  London.  For 
there  are  certain  types  of  men  who  are  not  his 
brothers.  The  men  who  think  that  nationality- 
is  a  snare  and  a  check  upon  civilization,  who 
believe  that  war  is  a  thing  so  terrible  that 
scarcely  anything  can  justify  it,  who  would 
have  all  brutality  and  force  and  the  fighting 
spirit  taken  from  the  world,  are  not  in  fraternity 
with  him.  He  despises  them,  and  he  does  not 
understand  them.  If  he  were  told  that  he 
stood  upon  a  lower  plane  of  civilization  than 
they,  he  would  with  unholy  glee  rejoice  in  that 
fact.  But  the  simple  men,  the  young  officers 
unmoved  in  the  tightest  of  tight  places,  their 
blasphemous  subordinates  who  take  the  sword 
with  small  care  that  they  may  perish  by  the 
sword,  the  old  Jndian  priests  who  "  sit  and 
meditate  on  the  latter  end  of  things,"  the 
Indian  peasant  who  says  : 

But  the  Vv'heat  and  the  cattle  are  all  my  care, 
And  the  rest  is  the  will  of  God, 

the  shepherd  knitting  on  the  Wiltshire  Downs, 
and  the  Newfoundland  fisherman  rocking  in 
his  dory  on  the  Grand  Banks,  these  are  his 
brethren,  these  the  men  whose  hearts  he  knows, 
and  it  is  to  hear  him  tell  of  these  that  we  open 
his  books. 


117 


VI 

SHORT     STORIES:      II 

To  his  keen  delight  in  the  things  of  this  world, 
Mr.  Kipling  joins  a  curious — it  might  be  said  a 
superstitious — interest  in  things  that  are  out- 
side it.  In  almost  every  collection  of  stories 
there  are  chronicles  of  the  supernatural.  And 
there  are  no  half -measures  with  him.  When  he 
quits  the  earth,  he  spreads  his  wings  beyond 
the  moon ;  when  he  writes  of  the  super- 
natural he  lets  his  imagination  have  full  play. 
He  has  not  that  air  of  telling  the  most  ordinary 
of  stories  which  Hoffmann — for  example — 
assumes  when  he  is  about  to  deal  with  the 
wildly  improbable.  Far  from  telling  a  plain 
tale  in  a  plain  man's  fashion,  he  is  reticent, 
nervous,  as  he  pretends,  of  shocking  by  reveal- 
ing all  he  knows  or  guesses.  He  hints  at  more 
terrible  mysteries  and  horrors  than  he  reveals, 
puts  broken  sentences  of  fear  into  the  mouths 
of  his  characters,  that  stimulate  curiosity 
without  revealing. 

'     In  this  he  shows  himself  master  of  the  tale 
of    fantastic    horror.      Tales    of    the    super- 

118 


SHORT     STORIES 

natural  wherein  precise  details  are  given  may 
interest  us — Mr.  Kipling  himself  has  written 
several  such — but  they  do  not  thrill  or  carry 
us  away.  One  can  make  natural  things  far 
more  terrible  than  ghostly.  No  tale  of  magic 
of  Hoffmann  is  so  terrible  as  that  of  the  noble- 
man who  finds  his  loved  and  beautiful  wife 
devouring  corpses  in  the  churchyard.  But  by 
judicious  restraint,  by  skilful  hints  and  clever 
suggestion  of  unearthly  atmosphere,  a  milieu 
of  terror  and  dreadful  mystery  can  be  built 
up.  When  we  strip  the  veil  from  black 
Horror — or  indeed  from  riggish  Delight — she 
assumes  straightway  smaller  proportions  than 
we  had  thought.  * 

The  Phantom  ^Rickshaw  is  one  of  the  earliest 
of  such  stories.  Having  ill-treated  and  in  fact 
helped  to  kill  the  woman  who  has  been  his 
mistress,  a  man  is  haunted  by  her  in  her  black 
and  yellow  'rickshaw.  When  he  rides  on  the 
Mall  at  Simla  with  his  fiancee,  he  sees  always 
his  former  love  in  the  'rickshaw  in  front  of  him ; 
whenever  he  is  out  of  doors  alone  it  pulls  up 
beside  him  and  she  begins  to  reproach  him. 
Eventually  the  strain  drives  him  mad.  The 
story  is  "  creepy,"  but  faulty  in  the  extreme. 
When  the  poor  wretch,  now  quite  off  his  head, 
blurts  out  the  whole  tale  to  his  fiancee,  she, 
instead  of  trying  to  comfort  him  and  taking 

119 


RUDYARD     KIPLING 

him  into  her  father's  house  as  surely  any 
human  girl  would  have  done,  slashes  him 
across  the  face  with  her  riding-whip  and  goes 
off  at  a  gallop.  This  is  a  grievous  weakness, 
but  a  type  of  weakness  of  which  Mr.  Kipling 
has  seldom  been  guilty  since  his  hand  has 
become  practised. 

The  Mark  of  the  Beast  makes  every  other 
story  of  the  kind  that  I  have  read  seem  child's 
play.  The  Spectator  said  of  it  that  it  was 
"  matchless  in  horror  and  terror."  We  use 
such  words  carelessly  enough,  but  if  we  take 
them  in  their  most  exact  and  literal  meaning 
they  are  more  or  less  adequate.  It  is  a  question 
whether  any  man  has  a  right  to  put  such 
dreadful  pictures  before  us.  But  it  is,  as  I 
have  said,  the  telling  rather  than  the  tale  that 
makes  the  flesh  creep,  and  a  bare  recital  of 
the  story  may  not  seem  to  those  who  do  not 
know  it  to  warrant  the  things  I  have  said  of  it. 

A  drunken  reveller,  returning  with  Strick- 
land of  the  Police,  who  appears  so  often  in 
other  stories,  and  the  narrator,  slips  from 
them  as  he  passes  the  temple  of  Hanuman, 
the  Monkey-god,  rushes  in,  and  grinds  the 
ashes  of  his  cigar-butt  into  the  forehead  of 
the  image. 

"  Shee  that  ?  "  he  says.  "  Mark  of  the  B— beasht  I 
I  made  it.    Ishn't  it  fine  ?  " 

120 


SHORT    STORIES 

Instantly  there  is  uproar.  The  temple  fills 
with  people,  and  it  looks  ugly  for  the  intruders. 
Suddenly  a  Silver  Man,  stark  naked,  "  a  leper 
as  white  as  snow,"  comes  from  behind  the 
image.  He  rushes  at  Fleete,  where  he  sits  in 
maudlin  content  on  the  ground,  throws  his 
arms  round  him,  mewing  the  while  like  an 
otter,  and  drops  his  head  upon  his  breast. 
Thereat  the  priests  are  silent,  and  the  English- 
men are  allowed  to  go.  That  in  itself  frightens 
Strickland.  "  They  should  have  mauled  us," 
he  says. 

Next  morning  Fleete  demands  for  breakfast 
underdone  chops,  and  eats  three  of  them  in 
a  revolting  manner.  He  tells  the  others  that 
he  has  been  bitten  by  mosquitoes  in  a  curious 
way,  and  shows  them  on  his  breast  a  mark 
like  the  rosette  on  a  leopard's  hide.  Then  they 
go  to  the  stables  to  inspect  the  horses. 

There  is  at  once  a  tremendous  scene.  The 
five  horses  "  reared  and  screamed  and  nearly 
tore  up  their  pickets ;  they  sweated  and 
shivered  and  lathered  and  were  distraught 
with  fear."  Returning  to  the  stable  with  the 
narrator  alone,  Strickland  proves  conclusively 
that  it  is  Fleete  they  fear.  Subsequently 
Fleete's  pony  will  not  let  him  approach,  and 
the  other  two  ride  out,  leaving  him  alone  to 
sleep. 

121 


RUDYARD     KIPLING 

They  return  in  the  dusk  and  their  horses 
bolt  on  the  drive  from  something  groveUing  on 
the  ground.  It  is  Fleete.  When  they  force 
him  to  return  they  find  that  in  the  hght  his 
eyes  are  horrible,  with  a  green  light  behind 
them.  He  is  plastered  with  dirt  from  head  to 
foot.  He  goes  at  once  to  his  room,  where  they 
hear  him  moving  about.  Presently  from  the 
room  comes  the  howl  of  a  wolf. 

People  write  and  talk  lightly  of  blood  running  cold 
and  hair  standing  up  and  things  of  that  kind.  Both 
sensations  are  too  horrible  to  be  trifled  with.  My 
heart  stopped  as  though  a  knife  had  been  driven 
through  it,  and  Strickland  turned  as  white  as  the 
tablecloth. 

The  howl  was  repeated,  and  was  answered  by 
another  howl  far  across  the  fields. 

That  set  the  gilded  roof  on  the  horror. 

They  rush  in,  find  Fleete  climbing  out  of  the 
window,  seize  him  and  bind  him  with  the 
leather  thongs  of  the  punkah-rope.  His  snarls 
are  those  of  a  wolf,  not  of  a  man.  "  Any  one 
entering  the  room  would  have  believed  that 
we  were  curing  a  wolf's  pelt.  That  was  the 
most  loathsome  accessory  of  all." 

The  doctor  certifies  that  Fleete  is  dying 
from  the  most  terrible  form  of  hydrophobia  he 
has  ever  seen.  He  leaves  them,  believing  that 
nothing  can  be  done.     Round  and  round  the 

122 


SHORT    STORIES 

house  they  hear  a  mewing  Hke  the  mewing  of 
a  she-otter.  At  each  cry  the  beast  that  was 
Fleet e  falls  into  a  fresh  paroxysm.  He  foams 
at  the  mouth  and  grows  gradually  weaker. 

On  a  sudden  resolution  they  wait  outside 
the  door,  and  after  a  terrible  struggle,  capture 
the  Silver  Man  as  he  passes  the  door.  They 
drag  him  into  the  room  where  Fleete  lies,  and 
the  latter  doubles  backward  into  a  bow  as  if 
poisoned  with  strychnine. 

"  I  think  I  was  right,"  said  Strickland.  "  Now  we 
will  ask  him  to  cure  this  case." 

Strickland  has  put  the  barrels  of  an  old 
shot-gun  into  the  fire,  and,  wrapping  a  towel 
round  his  hand,  he  now  seizes  them.  They 
tie  the  leper  to  a  bedstead. 

"  This  part,"  says  Mr.  Kipling,  "  is  not  to  be 
printed." 

Eventually  they  force  the  leper  to  take  the 
spell  off,  and  let  him  go.  Fleete  falls  into  a 
natural  sleep.  Next  morning  he  wakes,  tired 
out,  but  himself,  regretting  that  he  has  mixed 
his  drinks  "  last  night."  Of  the  intervening 
day  he  is  unconscious. 

Mr.  Kipling,  with  his  usual  uncanny  skill, 
"  sets  the  gilded  roof  on  the  horror." 

When  Fhete  was  dressed  he  came  into  the  dining- 
room  and  sniffed.    He  had  a  quaint  trick  of  moving 

123 


RUDYARD    KIPLING 

his  nose  when  he  sniffed.  "  Horrid  doggy  smell," 
said  he.  "  You  should  really  keep  those  terriers  of 
yours  in  better  order.    Try  sulphur,  Strick." 

Strickland  promptly  goes  into  hysterics  and 
the  narrator  follows  suit. 

I  think  that  the  effect  of  this  story  and  of 
others  such  as  The  Return  of  hnray,  in  which 
Strickland  also  plays  a  part,  is  heightened  by 
the  fact  that  it  is  told  in  the  first  person. 
That  is,  indeed,  one  of  the  best  methods  of 
telling  a  tale  of  magic,  since  it  invests  it  with 
a  false  air  of  verity. 

At  the  End  of  the  Passage  is  perhaps  not  a 
story  of  the  supernatural,  for  it  records  horrors 
that  have  been  fairly  well  authenticated.  An 
engineer,  overworked  and  prostrated  by  the 
heat  of  the  Indian  desert  in  summer,  when 
there  is  "  neither  sky,  sun,  nor  horizon — 
nothing  but  a  brown-purple  haze  of  heat,"  is 
unable  to  sleep  for  fear  of  that  which  comes 
upon  him  in  his  slumbers.  If  he  can  get  sound 
asleep,  "  deep  down,"  he  is  safe,  but  that  has 
not  now  happened  for  days,  and  his  dread  of 
falling  lightly  asleep  is  so  intense  that  he  keeps 
a  spur  in  his  bed  to  rowel  himself  back  to 
wakefulness — and  safety.  When  his  friends 
return  after  leaving  him  alone  while  they  go 
about  their  business  for  a  fortnight,  he  is 
lying  dead.    "  In  the  staring  eyes  v/as  written 

124 


SHORT    STORIES 

terror   beyond   the   expression   of  any   pen." 
His  personal  servant  gives  this  verdict  : 

"  Heaven-born,  in  my  poor  opinion,  this  that  was 
my  master  has  descended  into  the  Dark  Places,  and 
there  has  been  caught  because  he  was  not  able  to 
escape  with  sufficient  speed.  We  have  the  spur  for 
evidence  that  he  fought  with  Fear.  Thus  have  I 
seen  men  of  my  race  do  with  thorns  when  a  spell  was 
laid  upon  them  to  overtake  them  in  their  sleeping 
hours  and  they  dared  not  sleep." 

This  is  gruesome  enough,  but  it  will  find 
credence  ready  enough.  Then,  with  his 
favourite  trick  of  "  setting  the  gilded  roof  on 
the  horror,"  Mr.  Kipling  makes  the  doctor 
photograph  the  terrible  eyes  of  the  dead,  then 
hastily  tear  up  the  films  and  emerge  "  very 
white  indeed."    Says  he  : 

"  There  was  nothing  there.    It  was  impossible." 
"  That,"  said  Lowndes,  very  distinctly,  watching 

the  shaking  hand  striving  to  relight  the  pipe,  "  is  a 

damned  lie." 

I  think  he  succeeds  in  his  effort.  We  scarce 
pause  to  wonder  whether  there  could  be 
preserved  on  the  retinae  of  the  human  eye  the 
form  of  that  Fear  that  slew  Hammil.  Medical 
evidence  is,  I  believe,  against  the  author. 

Mr.  Kipling  has  written  tales  of  magic  in 
which  there  is  no  horror,  just  as  he  has  written 
tales  of  horror  in  which  the  supernatural  plays 

125 


RUDYARD    KIPLING 

no  part.  One  that  much  impressed  M.  Chev- 
rillon,  but  that  I  think  scarce  worthy  of  the 
praise  he  lavishes  upon  it,  is  called  The  Finest 
Story  in  the  World,  and  tells  of  a  young  bank 
clerk,  who  has  been  in  previous  incarnations  a 
galley-slave  in  Greek  and  Viking  ships,  and 
who,  in  a  sort  of  trance,  remembers  his  ex- 
periences. Eventually  he  falls  in  love,  and 
love  at  once  drives  from  his  soul  the  recol- 
lections that  the  narrator  has  been  drawing 
from  him  painfully,  little  by  little.  So  the 
greatest  story  in  the  world  is  never  finished. 

Somewhat  similar  is  Wireless,  the  story 
taking  its  name  from  the  fact  that  the  central 
theme  is  interwoven  with  an  account  of  some 
experiments  in  the  then  novel  wireless 
telegraphy.  A  young  consumptive,  a  chemist's 
assistant  placed  in  circumstances  resembling 
those  of  Keats,  of  whom  he  has  never  heard, 
is  in  some  way  imbued  with  his  spirit,  and,  in 
a  trance,  writes  portions  of  The  Eve  of  St. 
Agnes  and  the  Ode  to  a  Nightingale.  The  story 
is  well  told,  but  it  is  surely  a  weakness  that 
the  man  should  write  down  his  ideas  in  the 
exact  words  of  Keats. 

They  has  shared  with  The  Brushwood  Boy 
the  greatest  admiration  of  all  its  author's 
mystery  stories,  and  of  all  his  stories  of  children 
also.      It    is    very    beautiful,    but    somewhat 

126 


SHORT     STORIES 

obscure.    It  is  not,  for  example,  clear  why  the 
teller  of  the  story,  who  has  visited  the  blind 
woman  and  her  court  of  ghost  children,  and 
discovered  her  secret,  should  find  it  necessary 
to  say  good-bye  to  her  for  ever.     The  Brush- 
wood Boy  is  disconnected  and  rambling ;    it  is 
intensely  interesting,  but  it  does  not  maintain 
the  same  level  of  interest  all  through  what  is  a 
very  long   "  short   story."      Its   theme   is   the 
story  of  what  may  be  called  "  twin  dreams," 
of  a  man  and  a  woman  who  have  each  had  the 
same  dream,  in  which  both  participate,  over 
and  over  again  from  childhood.     So,  though 
they  have  not  met  since  he  was  a  small  boy 
and  she  little  more  than  a  baby,  they  share  the 
knowledge  of  a  wonderful  dream-country,  of 
the   brushwood-pile — that   gives   the   tale    its 
name — which   is   their   starting-point,    of  the 
Thirty-Mile-Ride    along    the    beach,    of    the 
policeman  who  will  turn  them  back,  of  "  They  " 
who     threaten     and     pursue.       Mr.     Kipling 
manages  to  give  the  effect  of  that  curious  in- 
consequence of  dreams,  so  complete  that  we 
almost   seem   to   discover   in   them   a   fourth 
dimension.     He  suggests  too  the  weird,  form- 
less terrors  of  nightmare. 

They  forgathered  in  the  middle  of  an  endless  hot 
tropic  night,  and  crept  into  a  huge  house  that  stood, 
he  knew,  somewhere  north  of  the  railway  station 

127 


RUDYARD    KIPLING 

where  the  people  ate  among  the  roses.  It  was  sur- 
rounded with  gardens,  all  moist  and  dripping  ;  and 
in  one  room,  reached  through  leagues  of  white-washed 
passages,  a  Sick  Thing  lay  in  bed.  Now  the  least 
noise,  Georgie  knew,  would  unchain  sonie  waiting 
horror,  and  his  companion  knew  it  too  ;  but  when 
their  eyes  met  across  the  bed,  Georgie  was  disgusted 
to  see  that  she  was  a  child — a  little  child  in  strapped 
shoes,  with  her  black  hair  combed  back  from  her 
forehead. 

"  What  disgraceful  folly  !  "  he  thought.  "  Now 
she  could  do  nothing  if  Its  head  came  off." 

Then  the  thing  coughed,  and  the  ceiling  shattered 
down  in  plaster  from  the  mosquito  netting,  and 
"  They  "  rushed  in  from  all  quarters.  He  dragged 
the  child  through  the  stifling  garden,  voices  chanting 
behind  them,  and  they  rode  the  Thirty-Mile-Ride 
under  whip  and  spur  along  the  sandy  beach  by  the 
booming  sea,  till  they  came  to  the  downs,  the  lamp- 
post and  the  brushwood-pile,  which  was  safety. 

Mr.  Kipling  has  not  always  handled  love 
scenes  with  insight,  but  in  this  case,  when  the 
explanation  between  the  two  comes  to  be 
made,  he  has  told  the  tale  of  the  love  of  an 
English  man  and  maid  as  tenderly  as  the  very 
different  scenes  between  Holden  and  his  be- 
loved native  mistress  in  Without  Benefit  of 
Clergy. 

Many  of  these  stories  are  told  with  an 
earnestness  that  compels  us  to  believe  that  he 
does  seriously  credit  the  interference  of  the 

128 


SHORT    STORIES 

supernatural  with  the  destinies  of  men.  Yet 
he  is  always  ready  to  poke  fun  at  a  society 
affecting  to  have  evidence  of  such  interference. 
The  Sending  of  Dana  Dan  is  an  amusing 
account  of  the  way  in  which  an  old  native 
tricks  a  knot  of  mystery-mongers  by  filling 
the  quarters  of  one  of  them  with  a  never- 
ending  stream  of  kittens,  which  the  society 
takes  for  a  "  manifestation." 

One  of  the  best  "  horror  tales,"  which  has  in 
it  nothing  of  the  supernatural,  is  The  Strange 
Ride  of  Morrowbie  Jukes,  who,  when  out 
riding,  falls  into  a  pit  where  dwell  the  Hindus 
who  have  had  the  misfortune  to  recover  from 
trance  or  catalepsy,  especially  from  the 
collapse  of  the  cholera,  when  "  you  are  carried 
to  be  burnt  almost  before  you  are  dead." 
These  creatures — ^they  can  scarce  be  called 
men — live  in  badger-holes  in  the  sand,  and 
food  is  occasionally  tossed  down  to  them  from 
above.  Some  of  them  catch  crows  by  the 
expedient  of  the  decoy  that  I  have  already 
mentioned.  It  is  impossible  to  climb  the  sides 
of  shifting  sand,  and  the  one  side  towards  a 
river  from  whence  exit  might  be  possible  is 
guarded  both  by  a  quicksand  and  a  boat 
moored  in  the  river  containing  riflemen. 

The  striking  part  of  the  tale  is  not  its  plot, 
which  is  trivial,  but  the  power  and  subtlety 
I  129 


X 


RUDYARD     KIPLING 

and  rather  savage  skill  with  which  is  pictured 
this  loathsome  community,  its  customs  and 
its  manner  of  life.  There  is  in  it  a  certain 
resemblance  to  A  Voyage  to  the  Houyhnhnms, 
for  these  creatures  are  no  less  horrible  than 
the  Yahoos.  It  is  not  so  much  a  story  as  an 
ugly  allegory  of  the  human  race.  I  think  Mr. 
Kipling  rouses  our  disgust  yet  more  than 
Swift,  because  he  is  apparently  more  sincere, 
less  obviously  malicious  and  eager  to  paint 
things  in  their  vilest  form. 

Bertran  and  Bimi  The  Spectator  called 
"  detestable,"  which  is  the  most  appropriate 
epithet  that  could  be  found.  It  is  the  story 
of  a  marvellous  orang-outang,  spoiled  and 
petted  by  a  French  naturalist,  that  sits  at  his 
table  and  smokes  cigars.  The  fellow  marries 
a  pretty  half-caste  French  girl,  and  neglects 
the  great  ape  ;  whereupon  the  latter  bursts 
through  the  ceiling  of  the  room  in  which  the 
terror-stricken  girl  has  locked  herself,  and 
tears  her  into  little  pieces.  When  he  has 
returned,  in  the  words  of  the  German  who 
tells  the  story  : 

"  Den  Bimi  come  to  dinner  at  der  same  table  mit 
us,  und  the  hair  on  his  hands  was  all  black  und  thick 
mit — mit  what  had  dried  on  der  hands.  Bertran 
gave  him  sangaree  till  Bimi  was  drunk  and  stupid, 

und  den " 

130 


SHORT     STORIES 

Hans  paused  to  puff  at  his  cigar. 

"  And  then  ?  "  said  I. 

"  Und  den  Bertran  he  kill  mit  his  hands,  und  I  go 
for  a  walk  upon  der  beach.  It  was  Bertran's  own 
piziness.  Wlien  I  come  back  der  ape  he  was  dead, 
und  Bertran  he  was  dying  abofe  him  ;  but  still  he 
laughed  liddle  und  low  und  he  was  quite  content.  .  .  ." 

"  But  why  in  the  world  didn't  you  help  Bertran 
instead  of  letting  him  be  killed  ?  "  I  asked. 

"  My  friend,"  said  Hans,  composedly  stretching 
himself  to  slumber,  "  it  was  not  nice  even  to  mineself 
dot  I  should  live  after  I  haf  seen  dot  room  mit  der 
hole  in  der  thatch.  Und  Bertran,  he  was  her  husband. 
Goot  night,  und — sleep  well." 

The  Spectator  was  of  opinion  that  Bertran 
and  Bimi  exceeded  what  was  permitted,  that 
it  should  never  have  been  written.  I  suggested 
that  the  same  thing  has  been  said  of  The  Mark 
of  the  Beast,  and  possibly  of  The  Strange  Ride 
of  Morrowbie  Jukes.  I  am  inclined  to  argue 
that  these  last  two,  with  The  Return  of  Imray 
and  At  the  End  of  the  Passage,  stand  on  the 
right  side  of  the  line,  if  one  is  to  be  drawn,  and 
Bertran  and  Bimi  on  the  wrong.  And  the  chief 
reason  I  would  urge  for  this  conclusion  is  that 
this  story  is  full  of  unnecessary  horror  and 
ugliness.  It  is  not,  to  begin  with,  in  any 
sense  a  good  story  judged  by  the  high  standard 
I  am  striving  to  apply  ;  it  does  not  hold  us 
captive  or  set  us  thinking.    The  other  four,  and 

131 


RUDYARD    KIPLING 

particularly  The  Mark  of  the  Beast,  have  these 
qualities.  The  horror  in  them  is  not  un- 
necessary. It  is  applied  with  skill  to  a  definite 
purpose,  which  purpose  it  achieves. 

The  Quarterly  Review  said  of  some  of  the 
more  ebullient  of  his  verses,  "  Mr.  Kipling, 
though  often  a  swashbuckler,  is  never  a 
charlatan."  Never  was  fairer  criticism,  and 
it  can  be  applied  also  to  the  subject  under 
discussion.  If  Mr.  Kipling  sometimes  leaves 
dross  and  dirt  in  the  figures  he  forms,  it  is  not 
because  he  is  a  clumsy  and  careless  craftsman, 
but  because  he  works  for  great  and  wide 
effects,  and  is  not  always  as  nice  as  he  might 
be  in  his  treatment  of  small.  Maupassant, 
perhaps  the  greatest  master  of  the  short  story 
that  any  literature  can  show,  errs  far  more 
often  than  he  in  the  way  I  have  described. 
Scattered  among  masterpieces  he  gives  us 
stories  whose  brutality  and  sordidness  there 
is  no  genius  or  power  to  excuse,  stories  at 
once  uglier,  more  sickening  and  less  interesting 
than  Bertran  and  Bimi. 

We  shall  notice,  if  we  make  careful  study  of 
these  stories,  how,  over  and  over  again,  Mr. 
Kipling  "  works  up "  the  situation,  as  a 
journalist  would  say,  with  a  few  deft  touches. 
Sometimes  the  touches  are  too  obviously  those 
of  a  journalist,  but  not  often,  and  that  is  a 

132 


SHORT    STORIES 

risk  which  has  to  be  run.  Consider,  for 
example,  the  effect  of  this  one  sentence  from 
My  Ozvn  True  Ghost  Story  : 

Peshawur  possesses  houses  that  none  will  willingly 
rent,  and  there  is  something — not  fever — wrong  with 
a  big  bungalow  in  Allahabad. 

Or  this  from  At  the  End  of  the  Passage  : 

The  resonant  hammering  of  a  coffin-lid  is  no  pleasant 
thing  to  hear,  but  those  who  have  experience  main- 
tain that  much  more  terrible  is  the  soft  swish  of  the 
bed-linen,  the  reeving  and  unreeving  of  the  bed-tapes, 
when  he  who  has  fallen  by  the  roadside  is  apparelled 
for  burial,  sinking  gradually  as  the  tapes  are  tied 
over,  till  the  swaddled  shape  touches  the  floor  and 
there  is  no  protest  against  the  indignity  of  hasty 
disposal. 

Most  of  these  touches  may  be  more  profit- 
ably considered  in  discussing  Mr.  Kipling's 
prose  style.  I  mention  them  now  to  lay  stress 
upon  the  skill  with  which  he  plays  on  our 
apprehension  as  upon  a  stringed  instrument. 
That  is  what  the  great  journalist  does,  and 
the  successful  writer  of  short  stories  must 
resemble  the  journalist  in  keeping  up  the 
interest  from  start  to  finish.  Maupassant  had 
this  power,  Hoffmann  had  it  in  a  less  degree  ; 
Poe  and  Villiers  de  I'lsle  Adam  lost  it  seldom, 
Balzac  too  often.  Pater,  Wilde  and  Anatole 
France,  though  one  had  exquisite  grace,  the 

133 


RUDYARD     KIPLING 

second  dancing  wit,  and  the  third  possesses 
both,  are  often  found  lacking.  Their  stories 
sag  somewhere  or  other.  They  interest  us 
intensely,  but  we  can  read  them  in  sections. 
With  regard  to  Mr.  Kipling  I  can  only  give 
my  own  experience  on  this  point.  In  writing 
these  chapters  it  has  happened  again  and 
again  that,  referring  to  some  particular  passage, 
I  have  against  my  will  read  on  to  the  end  of 
the  story,  which  I  had  probably  read  half  a 
dozen  times  before.  This  is  the  precise  opposite 
of  the  leisurely  art  of  Dickens  or— in  our  own 
day — Mr.  de  Morgan.  It  may  not  be  the 
highest  form  of  literature,  but  it  is  the  highest 
form  of  the  short  story. 


134 


VII 

SHORT     STORIES:     III 

Perhaps  the  best  story  Mr.  Kipling  ever 
wrote  is  The  Man  who  would  he  King.  Sir 
J.  M.  Barrie  has  declared  that  it  is  "  the  most 
audacious  thing  in  fiction,  and  yet  it  reads  as 
true  as  Robinson  Crusoe."  The  late  S.  R. 
Crockett  tells  us  that  several  literary  men  of 
his  acquaintance,  striving  to  arrive  at  a  verdict 
as  to  Mr.  Kipling's  best  story  in  which  none 
should  be  influenced  by  his  neighbour,  each 
wrote  the  name  of  that  which  he  considered 
best  on  a  slip  of  paper,  which  he  then  put  into 
a  bowl.  On  every  slip  was  written  The  Man 
who  would  he  King. 

It  is  perhaps,  like  Mr.  Wells'  fine  tale  The 
Country  of  the  Blind — which,  by  the  way, 
always  seems  to  me  a  sermon  in  favour  of  the 
dogma  which  Mr,  Wells  elsewhere  condemns — 
in  the  nature  of  an  allegory.  Two  adventurers  ) 
establish  themselves  in  the  midst  of  a  little 
mountain  tribe  in  Afghanistan,  and  become 
its  absolute  rulers.  The  people,  deceived  by 
trumpery   miracles,    hold   them   gods.      They 

135 


RUDYARD     KIPLING 

flourish  exceedingly,  make  laws,  form  an 
army,  live  in  splendour  and  luxury.  All  is 
well  till  one  of  them  desires  a  woman  to  live 
with  him,  and  demands  a  woman  from  the 
tribe.  A  girl  is  brought,  but  she  comes  sullen 
and  struggling,  dazed  with  fear  at  the  idea 
of  the  embraces  of  a  god.  When  he  touches 
her  she  bites  him,  and  draws  blood.  That 
dispels  the  illusion.  At  the  very  instant  the 
king's  blood  flows,  his  kingdom  falls.  He  is  a 
man,  the  people  realize,  and  therefore  an 
impostor.  He  is  seized  after  a  fight,  tortured 
and  slain. 

No  summary  can  give  any  adequate  idea  of 
this  story.  It  is,  as  Sir  J.  M.  Barrie  says,  as  real 
as  Robinson  Crusoe ;  it  moves  breathlessly,  with 
an  elan  like  a  cavalry  charge.  No  collection  of 
the  best  short  stories  could  be  considered 
representative  if  it  were  omitted. 

Mr.  Kipling,  when  he  portrays  types  other 
than  those  which  are  associated  with  his  name, 
is  not  always  successful.  I  have  already  made 
mention  of  the  Russian  officer  in  Kim,  and  the 
picture  he  draws  elsewhere  of  the  doings  of  a 
French  spy  on  an  English  man-of-war  is  even 
worse.  There  is  no  nation  in  Europe  less 
likely  to  employ  a  complete  fool  for  such  work 
than  the  French.  So  his  Liberal  is  generally  a 
caricature,  like  Mr.  Groombride  in  Little  Foxes 

136 


SHORT    STORIES 

— if  an  exceedingly  able  and  malicious  carica- 
ture. He  has,  however,  on  occasion  drawn 
types  that  might  have  seemed  unsympathetic 
to  his  talent  with  great  skill. 

One  of  these  is  Mcintosh  Jellaludin  in  To 
he  Filed  for  Reference,  one  of  the  best  stories  in 
Plain  Tales  from  the  Hills.  This  man  is  exiled 
and  outcast,  a  white  man  living  with  a  native 
woman,  drunken  and  degraded,  and  all  the 
time  writing  a  wonderful  book  of  philosophy. 
It  is  merely  an  episode,  but  a  fascinating 
episode. 

There  has  been  some  difference  of  opinion 
with  regard  to  the  merits  of  Mr.  Kipling's 
later  collections  of  stories  for  children,  Puck 
of  Pook's  Hill  and  Rewards  and  Fairies.  As 
children's  stories  I  doubt  whether  they  are 
successful.  They  are  too  complicated,  they 
do  not  move  directly  enough  on  their  path. 
Compared,  for  example,  with  Mr.  Andrew 
Lang's  historical  stories  for  children,  they  are 
far  higher  literature,  but — as  I  have  proved 
to  my  own  satisfaction — less  interesting  to 
children.  No  child,  in  fact — if  we  decide  to 
apply  that  name  to  persons  only  who  are 
below  the  age  of  fifteen — can  really  understand 
them.  Many  "  grown-ups,"  on  the  other  hand, 
delight  in  them.  I  have  known  women  who 
were  shocked  and  wearied  by  what  they  con- 

137 


RUDYARD    KIPLING 

sidered  the  brutality  of  the  earHer  stories,  who 
were  fascinated  by  these.  Undoubtedly,  if 
they  possess  less  of  the  old  force  and  brilliance, 
the  apparent  truth  and  ease  that  brought 
Mr.  Kipling  his  first  fame,  they  show  at  its 
highest  a  polished  beauty  that  had  been  in- 
creasing in  each  book  he  published. 

The  method  of  telling  these  stories  is 
infinitely  clever,  and  shows  Mr.  Kipling's  use 
of  the  "  machinery  "  of  fiction,  always  skilful, 
at  its  highest.  Puck  introduces  to  two  children 
a  number  of  representatives  of  England  in 
various  ages,  each  of  whom  tells  them  what 
life  was  like  in  his  day.  There  is  a  man  of  the 
Stone  Age,  who,  in  The  Knife  and  the  Naked 
Chalk,  tells  how  the  early  inhabitants  of  Britain 
discovered  the  use  of  steel  to  defend  them- 
selves against  the  wolf,  their  ancient  foe. 
There  is  a  Roman  born  in  Britain  during  the 
occupation,  who  has  never  seen  Rome,  who 
tells  of  the  days  of  her  decline  and  the  last 
fights  upon  the  wall.  There  is  a  Norman  who 
tells  of  the  Conquest,  and  others. 

There  is  a  certain  sameness  in  the  characters 
he  draws  in  these  different  ages.  He  puts  the 
stories  very  often  into  the  mouths  of  noble 
young  men  like  Parsenius  the  Roman  and  Sir 
Richard  Dalyngridge  the  Norman,  who  serve 
powerful,  less  scrupulous,  more  truculent  over- 

138 


SHORT    STORIES 

lords  such  as  Maximus  and  De  Aquila.  I 
imagine  that  he  does  this  because  he  desires 
not  to  present  flawed  heroes  to  children,  and 
yet  cannot  avoid  drawing  strong,  ruthless  men 
of  power  with  the  faults  as  well  as  the  merits 
of  their  kind.  A  particularly  fine  character  is 
De  Aquila,  the  man  who  aims  at  the  amalgama- 
tion of  Norman  and  Saxon  rather  than  the 
subjugation  of  the  latter,  who  works  with  the 
vision  before  his  eyes  of  the  great  and  united 
England  that  was  to  come  long  after  him. 

In  all  these  stories  Mr.  Kipling  displays  a 
great  deal  of  historical  knowledge,  but  he 
also  shows  a  quality  that  is  even  better  for  his 
purpose.  In  every  one  of  them  there  is  an 
intuition,  a  bold  attempt  to  grip  the  spirit  of 
the  age  with  which  he  deals,  a  daring  power  of 
invention  in  those  details  which  give  reality 
and  conviction  to  his  pictures.  With  infinite 
skill  he  gives  to  these  historical  figures  all  the 
outward  truth  and  accuracy  that  Merejkowski 
imparts  to  his,  though  he  never  succeeds,  like 
the  Russian,  in  drawing  characters  which 
belong  to  any  age  but  his  own.  It  scarce  needs 
to  say  that  in  this  fine  gallery  of  portraits  there 
is  not  one  that  approaches  that  of  Leonardo 
da  Vinci  as  he  appears  in  Tlie  Forerunner. 
That  Leonardo  is  in  thought  as  well  as  in  word 
and  deed  the  great  genius  of  the  Renaissance, 

139 


/ 


RUDYARD    KIPLING 

of  the  time  when  men  were  awakening. 
Mr.  Kiphng's  Emperor  Maximus  is  a  Lord 
Kitchener,  his  Parsenius  a  yomig  Enghsh  sub- 
altern, two  thousand  years  before  their  time. 

Before  I  pass  on  to  speak  of  the  stories  of 
machines,  I  would  mention  some  animal  stories 
besides  the  tales  of  Mowgli,  and  first  one  that 
stands  very  nigh  the  summit  of  his  art.  Those 
who  know  the  great  game  of  polo  may  be 
inclined  to  set  The  Maltese  Cat  as  high  as  The 
Man  who  would  he  King  or  Without  Benefit  of 
Clergy.  If  "  the  tale's  the  thing  "  be  a  sound 
motto,  if  a  man  should  value  a  story  for  that 
in  it  which  appeals  to  him,  then  are  they 
thoroughly  justified.  This  truly  delightful 
story — which,  like  The  Strange  Ride  of  Morrow- 
hie  Jukes,  The  Return  of  Imray  and  many 
others,  has  been  translated  into  French — tells 
how  a  game  of  polo  for  the  championship  of 
Northern  India  is  played  from  the  point  of 
view  of  the  winning  ponies.  These  are  led  by  a 
little  grey  wonder,  The  Maltese  Cat,  who  by  his 
science  and  judgment  and  undaunted  courage 
not  only  inspires  the  other  ponies  and  wins 
the  match  against  the  most  expensive  cattle  in 
India,  but  saves  the  life  of  the  captain  of  his 
team  by  his  sagacity.  Mr.  Kipling,  it  need 
hardly  be  said,  knows  the  game  of  polo,  at  any 
rate  as  then  played  in  India,  as  he  knows  the 

140 


SHORT    STORIES 

oaths  of  the  private  soldier  and  the  chatter  of 
the  bazaar.  He  tells  this  story  with  a  rattle 
and  rush  that  keep  us  in  a  high  state  of  excite- 
ment from  its  start  to  its  thrilling  climax.  As 
in  so  many  of  his  stories,  we  fancy  that, 
though  he  does  not  obtrude  it  upon  us,  he 
pokes  a  lesson  slyly  at  us.  The  ponies  are 
discussing  the  game  in  advance  somewhat 
lugubriously,  wondering  how  they  can  make 
shift  to  stand  up  against  their  formidable 
opponents. 

"  Money  means  pace  and  weight,"  said  Shiraz,  rub- 
bing his  black  silk  nose  dolefully  along  his  neat -fitting 
boot,  "  and  by  the  maxims  of  the  game  as  I  know 
it 

"  Ah,  but  we  aren't  playing  the  maxims,"  said  the 
Maltese  Cat,  "  we're  playing  the  game." 

In  later  editions  the  Jungle  Books  have  been 
rearranged.  All  the  stories  of  Mowgli  have 
been  put  together  in  the  first,  and  all  the 
stories  in  which  he  does  not  appear  in  the 
second.  Many  of  these  are  excellent,  though 
far  below  Red  Dog  or  Kaa^s  Hunting.  Among 
the  best  are  The  White  Seal  and  The  Under- 
takers, an  amusing  account  of  a  cynical  con- 
versation between  three  of  the  world's  most 
evil  scavengers,  a  crocodile,  an  adjutant  crane 
and  a  jackal.  Mr.  Kipling  has  done  us  one 
poor  service  by  these  tales  ;  he  has  prepared 
.       141 


RUDYARD     KIPLING 

the  way  for  a  whole  flood  of  imitations,  most 
of  them  exceeding  indifferent.  No  popular 
monthly  magazine  is  now  complete  without  its 
"  tale  of  the  wild,"  though  not  more  than  two 
of  the  authors  combine  knowledge  with  the 
power  of  telling  a  good  story. 

The  Just  So  Stories  are  children's  stories  in  a 
far  truer  sense  than  Puck  of  Pookas  Hill  and 
Rewards  and  Fairies.  One  is  sorry  for  the 
child  between  the  ages  of  ten  and  fifteen  who 
has  not  learned  how  the  Whale  got  his  Throat, 
how  the  Leopard  got  his  Spots,  of  the  Cat  that 
Walked  by  Himself  and  the  Butterfly  that 
Stamped.  Best  of  all  perhaps  is  How  the 
Alphabet  was  Made,  wherein  the  forming  of 
letters  is  described  with  much  ingenuity  and 
a  good  deal  of  science.  Some  of  the  poems 
between  the  stories  are  delightful,  particularly 
that  after  How  the  Camel  got  his  Hump, 
which  tells  little  boys  and  girls  how  to  avoid  a 
like  calamity. 

Even  in  these  stories  there  are  many  things, 
many  of  Mr.  Kipling's  most  characteristic 
quips,  that  children  will  not  understand. 
Sometimes,  indeed,  he  seems  to  be  winking  at 
the  grown-ups  from  his  pages,  over  the  children's 
shoulders,  as  when  he  draws  an  Egyptianized 
baboon,  and  in  the  note  appended  to  the 
picture  says  :    "  The  umbrella-ish  thing  about 

142 


SHORT    STORIES 

his  head  is  his  Conventional  Mane."  He  shows 
himself,  by  the  way,  in  this  book  an  excellent 
draughtsman,  not  only  humorous  and  imagina- 
tive, but  with  a  real  gift  for  line.  The  picture 
of  Old  Man  Kangaroo  running  away,  and 
finding  time  to  "be  rude  to "  Yellow-Dog 
Dingo  over  his  shoulder  as  he  runs,  is  as  full  of 
life  as  it  is  of  fun.  The  Just  So  Stories  desei^e 
their  place  on  the  nursery  bookshelf  with 
Alice  in  Wonderland  and  Edward  Lear's 
Nonsense  Songs  and  Stories.  No  praise  can  be 
higher  than  that. 

Everyone  has  loved  The  Maltese  Cat,  and 
no  one  has  objected  to  the  sentiments  and 
ideas  that  have  been  put  into  his  clever  little 
grey  head.  On  the  other  hand,  some  of  the 
severest  criticism  has  been  directed  against 
those  stories  in  which  he  has  endowed  machines 
with  life.  Now  it  is  obvious  that  this  is  a 
problem  which  each  individual  reader  must 
solve  for  himself.  It  is  perfectly  legitimate 
to  endow  machines  with  life,  to  make  them 
sentient  beings,  if  you  can  give  reality  to  your 
sketch  and  if  you  can  make  it  interesting. 
Has  Mr.  Kipling  done  this  in  '007  and  The 
Ship  that  Found  Herself?  There  are  not 
wanting  critics  who  complain  that  he  has  not ; 
I  can  only  say  that  for  me  he  has,  that  the 
illusion  is  complete. 

143 


/ 


( 

\ 


RUDYARD    KIPLING 

I  believe,  in  fact,  that  in  my  boyhood  the 
former  was  my  favourite  of  all  short  stories. 
•007  is  a  locomotive  engine,  of  the  highest  type, 
and  the  story  merely  tells  of  his  first  intro- 
duction to  the  yard,  of  his  dread  of  the  noise 
and  rush  and  clatter,  of  his  first  run — to  rescue 
an  engine  that  has  been  derailed — of  his  success, 
and  his  final  promotion  to  draw  the  White 
Moth  that  takes  the  overflow  from  the  Purple 
Emperor,  the  great  express  of  the  American 
millionaire.  The  talk  of  the  engines  awaiting 
their  turn,  the  boasting  of  the  several  types 
over  their  several  high  qualities,  is  most 
amusing  and  convincing.  And  the  run  of  -007 
is  splendid.  We  thrill  with  his  hopes  and 
fears  as  he  flies  through  the  night  for  the  first 
time,  fleeing  from  his  own  shadow,  shuddering 
at  each  unrailed  bridge,  with  the  tool-car 
clattering  behind  him. 

I  am  prepared  to  admit,  however,  that 
there  is  a  little  too  much  mechanism  in  The 
Ship  that  Found  Herself.  Its  central  idea  is 
excellent ;  any  sailor  will  proclaim  its  truth. 
It  is,  shortly,  that  a  ship  is  not  a  ship  till  she 
has  "  found  herself."  She  is,  to  begin  with,  a 
conglomeration  of  ribs  and  girders  and  rivets  ; 
when  she  has  "  found  herself"  she  is  a  perfect 
unity.  And  to  arrive  at  this  point  she  must 
endure  a  certain  battering  from  the  elements 

144 


SHORT     STORIES 

she  has  to  face,  and  all  the  theories  of  her 
construction  must  be  vitiated.  For  in  theory 
none  of  her  rivets  can  move  the  hundredth 
fraction  of  an  inch  ;  they  are  immovable  as  a 
rock.  In  practice,  however,  everything  must 
give  a  little,  everywhere  there  must  be  a  little 
"  play,"  till  that  whole  that  is  the  ship  is  an 
elastic,  living  thing.  Then,  and  not  till  then, 
has  the  ship  "  found  herself." 

The  story  tells  of  the  first  crossing  of  the 
Atlantic  by  the  Dimbula,  a  first-class  cargo- 
boat,  a  more  wonderful  machine,  Mr.  Kipling 
contends,  than  a  great  liner.  The  one  for 
success  must  simply  be  more  gorgeous  than 
the  most  gorgeous  of  hotels  ;  in  the  other, 
every  inch  of  cargo-capacity  and  every  extra 
knc^t  of  speed  must  be  weighed  anxiously 
against  the  cost  of  fuel.  The  Dimbula  en- 
counters very  heavy  weather.  Her  groaning 
as  she  meets  it  is  the  groaning  of  her  countless 
parts,  frames,  deck-beams,  stringers,  capstan, 
screw-shaft,  funnel,  rivets.  Just  as  she  makes 
harbour,  apparently  severely  damaged,  since 
she  shows  signs  of  her  treatment  that  to  the 
inexperienced  eye  seems  serious,  a  new  voice 
is  heard.  It  is  the  voice  of  the  Dimbula,  no 
longer  of  her  parts.  She  is  all  one  now,  a  ship 
in  truth.    She  has  "  found  herself." 

The  record  of  all  the  different  voices,  the 
K  145 


RUDYARD    KIPLING 

enumeration  of  a  hundred  different  parts  of 
the  ship  with  which  none  but  a  seaman — 
perhaps,  rather,  none  but  a  ship-builder — is 
likely  to  be  conversant,  becomes  after  a  time 
a  little  wearisome.  It  is  not,  as  some  critics 
have  maintained,  bad  in  itself.  There  is 
rather  too  much  of  it.  Yet  the  story  is  a  good 
one,  and  the  final  emergence  of  the  "  person- 
ality "  of  the  Dimbula  well  told. 

The  love  of  machinery  has  not  waned. 
With  the  Night  Mail  in  Actions  and  Reactions 
is  its  latest  proof.  In  this  story  Mr.  Kipling 
meets  Mr.  Wells  on  his  own  ground  ;  he  looks 
into  the  future  and  he  describes  the  machines 
he  sees  there.  He  has  not  to  fear  from  com- 
parison. This  is  a  story  told,  as  a  special 
reporter  would  tell  it,  of  the  crossing  of  the 
Atlantic  in  the  aerial  postal  packet.  The  air- 
ship, its  machinery,  are  described  with  a  gusto 
that  seems  to  show  a  boyish  delight  in  their 
invention.  The  description  of  the  great  storm 
that  is  met  merits  the  hard-used  adjective 
"  epic."  He  fits  in,  incidentally  as  it  were,  a 
little  sketch  of  the  society  of  the  time.  In 
reality  all  is  in  the  hands  of  the  A.B.C. ;  the 
Aerial  Board  of  Control.  It  has  come  to  be 
recognized  by  all  the  principalities  and  powers 
of  the  world  that  the  world's  supreme  concern 
is  the  traffic.     Gradually  every  other  interest 

146 


SHORT    STORIES 

has  been  subordinated  to  this,  and  so  gradually, 
even  unwillingly,  the  A.B.C.  has  found  all  the 
affairs  of  mankind  upon  its  shoulders.  It  is  a 
less  intellectual,  less  thoughtful  picture  than 
that  of  Mr.  Wells  in  The  World  Set  Free— but 
it  makes  better  reading. 

He  has  appended  to  With  the  Night  Mail  a 
series  of  announcements  of  the  A.B.C,  a 
number  of  advertisements,  answers  to  corre- 
spondents, etc.,  which  are  supposed  to  be  taken 
from  the  newspaper  in  which  it  appeared. 

It  has  been  said  that  these  mock  advertise- 
ments are  unworthy  of  a  serious  artist.  I 
must  repeat  an  argument  I  have  already  used. 
If  they  interest  or  amuse  intelligent  persons, 
then  they  are  not  unworthy,  and  I  cannot 
believe  that  they  fail  in  this  respect.  They  are 
interesting  because,  even  if  merely  examples 
of  the  quackery  that  fills  the  advertisement 
pages  of  our  newspapers,  they  show  thought  in 
its  adaptation  to  another,  an  imaginary,  age. 

But  best  of  all  is  a  review  of  the  biography, 
by  his  son,  of  the  great  scientist  of  aeronautics, 
often  mentioned  in  the  story,  Xavier  Lavalle. 
Lavalle's  theory  of  the  cyclone  has  revolution- 
ized knowledge,  and  upset  the  theories  of  the 
hitherto  dominant  "  Spanish  School."  Would 
that  all  book-reviewing  were  as  vivid  as  the 
relation  of  this  incident : 

147 


RUDYARD    KIPLING 

M.  Victor  Lavalle  tells  us  of  that  historic  colHsion 
(en  plane)  on  the  flank  of  Hecla  between  Herrera, 
then  a  pillar  of  the  Spanish  School,  and  the  man 
destined  to  confute  his  theories  and  lead  him  intellec- 
tually captive.  Even  through  the  years,  the  immense 
laugh  of  Lavalle  as  he  sustains  the  Spaniard's  wrecked 
plane,  and  cries  :  "  Courage  !  /  shall  not  fall  till  I 
have  found  Truth,  and  I  hold  you  fast  !  "  rings  like 
the  call  of  trumpets. 

I  have  spoken  of  the  similarity  of  Mr. 
Kipling's  humour  to  that  of  the  Americans. 
There  are  one  or  two  stories,  on  the  lines  of 
The  Incarnation  of  Krishna  Mulvaney,  that 
depend  on  humour  and  that  alone  for  their 
effect.  Their  plot  is  of  the  simplest,  and  very 
often  quite  absurd,  so  that,  if  the  fun  flags  for 
an  instant,  if  the  note  is  not  sustained  from 
start  to  finish,  we  find  ourselves  cold  and 
carping.  My  Sunday  at  Home,  for  example, 
is,  though  it  too  has  its  joyful  moments, 
grotesque  and  strained.  But  there  are  two 
others,  Brugglesmith  and  The  Puzzler,  that 
cannot  be  beaten  in  this  type.  The  latter  tells 
how  the  narrator  detects  a  famous  judge  and 
two  dignified  elderly  friends  striving  to  solve 
the  problem,  with  the  aid  of  a  monkey  taken 
from  an  organ,  whether  or  not  the  tree  known 
as  the  "  monkey-puzzler  "  deserves  its  name, 
and  of  the  consequences  of  the  experiment. 

148 


SHORT     STORIES 

My  memory  of  my  first  acquaintance  with 
Brugglesmiih,  a  bacchanalian  adventure  with 
a  blackguardly  old  Scottish  engineer  whom  the 
author  pretends  he  wheeled  home  through  the 
streets  of  London  at  night,  is  peculiarly  vivid. 
On  that  occasion  I  came  as  near  as  I  trust  will 
ever  be  my  fate  to  being  thrust  out  of  the 
British  Museum  Reading  Room  by  its  dignified 
officials. 

These  stories  reveal  Mr.  Kipling  as  a  master 
of  that  roaring  mirth  which  is  peculiarly  a 
mark  of  the  Anglo-Saxon  race.  He  cannot 
exercise  it  at  will,  he  fails  sometimes  when  he 
would  appear  to  have  striven  most.  It  is 
indeed  the  rarest  of  gifts,  and  often  fails  the 
few  who  possess  it.  There  is  one  other  living 
Englishman  only  who  can,  as  the  saying  is, 
"  make  you  laugh  till  you  cry,"  and  it  was  in 
one  book  only  that  he  succeeded  in  the  feat. 
This  power  of  producing  helpless  laughter  that 
Mr.  Kipling  and  Mr.  Jerome  possess,  is  some- 
thing altogether  apart  from  the  ordinary 
standards  by  which  literature  is  judged.  It 
is  some  indefinable  quality,  very  human,  very 
near  to  the  foundations  of  our  being,  some 
current  that  passes  between  certain  chosen 
persons  and  the  crowd.  The  man  who  has  it 
may  fail  sometimes  in  judgment  of  his  fellow- 
men,  but  he  has  with  them  a  closer  bond  even 

149 


RUDYARD     KIPLING 

than  the  mind.  He  is  Hnked  to  that  in  them 
which  defies  analysis,  the  common  conscious- 
ness of  humanity  set  amid  incongruous 
elements,  the  hidden  inner  spirit,  "  the  thing 
call'd  soul." 


150 


VIII 

NOVELS 

The  novel  is  to-day  as  assuredly  the  chief 
means  of  expression  as  it  was  in  the  days  of 
Fielding,  Sterne,  Richardson  and  Smollett,  as 
was  the  drama  under  Elizabeth  and  rimed 
verse  from  Cleveland  to  Pope.  Short  stories, 
the  publishers  tell  us,  do  not  sell.  Save  for  the 
work  of  a  few  masters  in  the  craft,  Mr.  Kipling, 
Mr.  Conrad,  Mr.  Wells,  Mr.  Blackwood,  Mr. 
Mason,  and  one  or  two  others,  they  are  a  drug 
in  the  market.  The  lending  libraries  are 
inclined  to  frown  upon  them,  and  the  dis- 
pleasure of  these  potentates  of  letters  is  not 
lightly  to  be  faced. 

It  is  not  then  surprising  that  an  author  such 
as  Mr.  Kipling,  the  greatest  in  his  own  par- 
ticular art  that  English  literature  has  produced, 
should  yet  have  been  tempted  to  try  his  mettle 
in  a  field  that  did  not  suit  nearly  so  well  his 
peculiar  powers,  and  where  he  had  to  meet 
and  bear  comparison  with  rivals  infinitely 
more  redoubtable.  He  has  not  been  entirely 
successful.     He  has  written  four  long  books, 

151 


RUDYARD     KIPLING 

one  of  them  with  a  collaborator.  Of  these  the 
first  three,  all  interesting,  all  good  stories  well 
told,  have  added  nothing  to  his  fame,  and  will 
take  a  place  when  his  work  is  tried  by  posterity 
far  below  the  best  of  the  Jungle  Books,  Life's 
Handicap  and  The  Day's  Work.  In  the  last 
he  has  justified  his  ambition,  and  produced 
one  of  the  finest  novels  that  has  appeared  since 
the  beginning  of  this  century. 
^  The  Light  that  Failed  has  been  much  abused, 
and  has  merited  some  of  the  abuse.  It  is  raw, 
uncomely,  and  "unpleasant"  in  the  sense 
that  hardly  one  of  its  characters  is  sympathetic. 
The  Athenaeum  declared  of  it,  "  it  is  an  organic 
whole — a  book  with  a  backbone — and  stands 
out  boldly  among  the  nerveless,  flaccid,  in- 
vertebrate things  called  novels  that  enjoy  an 
expensive,  but  ephemeral  existence  in  the 
circulating  libraries."  That  may  be,  but  the 
praise  is  in  itself  an  admission  that  the  book 
is  no  masterpiece,  for  masterpieces  are  not 
compared,  however  favourably,  with  the 
"  nerveless,  flaccid,  invertebrate  things  called 
novels."  As  a  "  novel  of  the  year  "  it  is  well 
enough;  as  a  novel  of  its  generation  it  is  not 
Yeiy  noticeable.  The  more  we  admire  Mr. 
Kipling,  the  higher  the  standard  by  which  we 
judge  his  work,  the  less  attention  shaU  we 
pay  to  The  Light  that  Failed. 

152 


NOVELS 

But  judged  by  lower  standards,  by  the 
standard  of  the  everyday  tale  of  adventure 
and  character,  it  is  at  least  "  a  rattling  good 
story."  Dick  Heldar  is  a  real  and  living 
figure.  The  accounts  of  his  unhappy  boyhood 
and  companionship  with  Maisie  are  real  and 
living  likewise,  and  pathetic  as  well.  His 
adventures  in  the  Soudan,  whither  he  goes  as 
artist  war-correspondent,  the  comradeship  with 
Torpenhow,  the  return,  and,  after  a  terrible 
struggle,  the  wild  joy  of  success,  when  his 
pictures  and  his  fame  are  everywhere,  all  these 
are  exciting,  yet  always  credible.  There  is 
something  intensely  pathetic  in  the  worship 
of  this  fierce,  brutal  man  for  the  refound 
Maisie,  for  we  can  see  from  the  first  that  that 
chilly  little  person  will  never  bring  him  happi- 
ness. She  also  is  an  artist,  but  without  in- 
spiration, and  filled  with  a  selfish  dread  of 
being  overmastered  by  Dick's  genius  and 
personality.  He  fights  manfully  to  win  her,  to 
impress  upon  her  all  the  joys  of  the  roving  life 
he  has  led,  to  set  her  aflame  with  desire  for  all 
the  things  he  has  seen  and  can  show  her. 
There  is  one  passage  in  particular  that  has 
been  much  quoted,  wherein  he  rises  to  high 
and  rare  eloquence,  and  puts  all  the  lure  of 
romance  in  a  few  shining  sentences. 

What  do  you  think  of  a  big,  red,  dead  city  built  of 
153 


RUDYARD    KIPLING 

red  sandstone,  with  raw  green  aloes  growing  between 
the  stones,  lying  out  neglected  on  honey-coloured 
sands  ?  There  are  forty  dead  kings  there,  Maisie, 
each  in  a  gorgeous  tomb  finer  than  all  the  others. 
You  look  at  the  palaces  and  streets  and  shops  and 
tanks,  and  think  that  men  must  live  there,  till  you 
find  a  wee  gray  squirrel  rubbing  its  nose  all  along  the 
market-place,  and  a  jewelled  peacock  struts  out  of  a 
carved  door-way  and  spreads  its  tail  against  a  marble 
screen  as  fine  pierced  as  point -lace.  Then  a  monkey 
— a  little  black  monkey — walks  through  the  main 
square  to  get  a  drink  from  a  tank  forty  feet  deep.  He 
slides  down  the  creepers  to  the  water's  edge,  and 
a  friend  holds  him  by  the  tail,  in  case  he  should 
fall  in. 

Tragedy  has  never  been  far  off,  and  at  last 
it  comes.  Dick,  despairing  at  the  ill-success  of 
his  suit,  and  left  alone  in  their  quarters  by 
Torpenhow,  is  at  work  upon  a  picture  which 
he  hopes  to  make  his  masterpiece.  It  is  a 
modern  "  Melancholia,"  and  his  model  is  a 
little  girl  of  the  streets  who  has  been  taken  up 
and  befriended  by  Torpenhow.  As  the  work 
progresses  he  is  much  worried  by  failing  eye- 
sight. At  last  going  to  an  oculist,  he  hears 
the  dread  verdict.  His  optical  nerves  have 
been  badly  damaged  by  a  wound  received  in 
the  Soudan,  and  the  loss  of  his  sight  is  a  matter 
of  months  at  the  longest.  He  returns,  plunged 
into  despair,  and  works  feverishly  to  complete 
his  picture,   keeping  himself  going  and  pur- 

154 


NOVELS 

chasing  forgetfulness  by  fierce  bouts  of  drink- 
ing. When  Torpenhow  returns,  he  finds  him 
a  dirty,  dishevelled,  unshaven  wreck — but  the 
great  picture  is  finished. 

Almost  at  once  blindness  descends  upon 
him,  and  at  the  same  time  the  model,  who  has 
fallen  in  love  with  Torpenhow  and  is  fiercely 
jealous  of  Dick's  influence  with  him,  destroys 
the  picture.  The  truth  is  kept  from  Dick  for 
a  long  time,  and  he  believes  the  picture  to  be 
intact  and  talks  of  the  fame  it  will  bring  him. 
And  then  at  last,  when  Maisie  comes  to  see 
him  she  reveals  the  truth,  and  reveals  also — 
what  is  far  harder  for  him  to  bear — her  dread 
and  horror  of  his  blindness.  That  is  the  end.  He 
accompanies  Torpenhow  to  Africa  once  again, 
and  "a  merciful  bullet"  comes  to  his  succour. 

That  at  least  is  the  only  version  I  care  to 
discuss,  the  version  its  author  originally  con- 
ceived. The  sentimentalized,  sugared  version 
which  ends  with  Dick  in  Maisie's  arms  is  weak, 
and — in  view  of  the  girl's  character — most 
unlikely. 

There  is  in  this  book  an  extraordinary 
collection  of  unpleasant  people.  The  woman 
who  is  the  guardian  of  Dick  and  Maisie  in  child- 
hood is  vile,  the  firm  that  buys  Dick's  sketches 
is  represented  by  a  bandit,  Maisie  is  a  cowardly, 
selfish  soul,  Dick  himself  brutal  and  savage. 

155 


RUDYARD    KIPLING 

His  paintings,  Maisie  declares,  "  smell  of 
tobacco  and  blood,"  and  the  same  might  be 
said  of  his  character.  Yet  he  is  at  least  brave  v^ 
and  loyal  and  honest  and  a  dreamer  of  fine 
dreams,  and  Maisie  is  none  of  these  things. 
The  pleasantest  personage  is  undoubtedly 
"  the  Red-haired  Girl,"  who  herself  loves  Dick 
silently. 

/  The  affection  of  Dick  and  Torpenhow  is  of 
/that  close,  silent,  yet  almost  fiercely-possessive 
'kind  that  is  common  between  such  men. 
Torpenhow  looks  upon  him,  "his  eyes  full  of 
the  austere  love  that  springs  up  between  men 
yv^ho  have  tugged  at  the  same  oar  together  and 
4re  yoked  by  custom  and  use  and  the  intimacies 
6f  toil." 

And  the  conversations  between  the  two  are 
excellently  rendered.  When,  for  example, 
Dick  finds  the  little  weary  prostitute,  whom  his 
friend  has  taken  in  out  of  compassion  and 
without  his  knowledge,  asleep  on  the  sofa,  he 
exclaims  : 

"  Oh,  I  say,  old  man,  this  is  too  bad  !  You 
mustn't  bring  this  sort  up  here.  They  steal 
things  from  the  rooms." 

Now  this  is  exactly  the  tone  which  one 
bachelor  would  adopt  to  another  under  the 
circumstances,  but  there  are  few  other  than 
Mr.  Kipling  who  would  have  dared  to  say  so. 

156 


NOVELS 

Most  writers  would  have  dragged  in  a  word 
or  two  of  reproof  or  disgust  for  the  edification 
of  the  righteous,  Dick  is  merely  anxious  as  to 
the  fate  of  the  spoons. 

There  lies  one  of  Mr.  Kipling's  great  merits. 
Always  he  strives,  not  always  with  success,  but 
never  relinquishing  the  effort  from  lack  of 
courage,  to  "  draw  the  thing  as  he  sees  it." 

The  Naulakha,  written  in  collaboration  with 
his  brother-in-law  Wolcott  Balestier,  is  even 
less  satisfactory  than  The  Light  that  Failed. 
It  is  without  doubt  the  least  known  of  Mr. 
Kipling's  books.  It  is  as  a  story  perhaps 
more  exciting  than  The  Light  that  Failed,  but 
less  balanced,  with  less  precise  sketches  of 
character,  and  a  purely  trivial  plot.  The  tale 
of  the  quest  of  the  rajah's  wonderful  jewel  is 
merely  an  excuse  for  the  introduction  of  thril- 
ling and  gorgeous  Indian  scenes.  And  even  if 
India  is  well  described,  there  is  none  of  that 
magic  suggestion  of  atmosphere  that  we  expect 
from  Mr.  Kipling.  It  is  quite  unlike  his 
ordinary  work.  It  might  be,  in  fact,  a  good 
translation  of  a  book  on  India,  supposing  him 
to  have  studied  it,  of  M.  Jean  Richepin,  who 
is  well  enough,  but  an  artist  of  inferior  calibre 
to  Mr.  Kipling.  It  has  its  moments,  but  there 
are  not  enough  of  them.  I  shall  not  deal  with 
it  at  greater  length. 

157 


RUDYARD    KIPLING 

Captains  Courageous  is  a  far  better  book,  I 
think  a  book  that  would  appeal  to  boys  more 
than  Puck  of  Pook's  Hill,  written  expressedly 
for  them.  But,  as  was  said  of  Treasure  Island, 
it  will  appeal  to  "  all  boys  from  nine  to  ninety." 
There  is  an  infectious  vigour  about  the  tale, 
the  smell  of  salt  is  borne  to  us  from  its  pages. 
It  is  a  fine  epic  of  high  and  manful  endeavour, 
of  the  hard  and  dangerous  yet  happy  lives  of 
simple  men.  A  Mr.  James  Oliphant,  I  am 
reminded  by  my  allusion  to  Treasure  Island, 
sets  it  above  this  book.  The  value  of  his 
criticism  may  be  gauged  by  the  intelligent 
remark  elsewhere  in  his  book  (Victorian 
Novelists)  :  "  Not  many  people  would  think 
of  reading  Treasure  Island  a  second  time." 
Captains  Courageous,  good  as  it  is,  is  a  long 
way  below  Stevenson's  splendid  book.  There 
is  no  figure  to  compare  with  that  terrible  sea- 
cook  John  Silver.  I  am  inclined  to  agree  with 
this  critic  in  assigning  definitely  to  Mr.  Kipling 
a  place  in  literature  higher  than  Stevenson's, 
but  that  is  no  reason  for  setting  one  of  his 
inferior  works  above  what  is  very  nigh  the 
latter's  masterpiece.  I  think  that  the  Mr. 
Kipling  who  declared  that  Stevenson  was  his 
master  would  object  very  strongly  to  seeing 
Captains  Courageous  accorded  a  higher  place 
than  Treasure  Island. 

158 


NOVELS 

The  story  begins  with  a  young  American 
"bounder"  of  fifteen,  son  of  a  millionaire, 
plaguing  the  passengers  of  an  Atlantic  liner 
crossing  the  Grand  Bank  with  his  insolence.  A 
sardonic  German  presents  him  with  a  very 
strong  cigar,  which  quite  overwhelms  him.  He 
falls  overboard  and  is  picked  up  by  a  dory 
belonging  to  the  smack  We're  Here  of  Glou- 
cester, Massachusetts.  He  meets  his  rescuers 
with  his  usual  insolence,  and  offers  them  a 
large  sum  to  take  him  at  all  speed  to  New 
York.  But  the  crew  of  the  We're  Here  dis- 
believe his  tales  of  wealth.  They  have  only 
just  begun  their  fishing,  and  the  price  they 
will  obtain  for  their  catch  seems  much  bigger 
than  any  vague  sum  the  young  millionaire  can 
promise.  They  decide  to  continue  their  fish- 
ing, and  to  make  young  Harvey  work  like  the 
rest.  After  an  attempt  at  rebellion,  when  he 
is  knocked  down  by  Disco  Troop,  the  owner, 
he  is  set  to  assist  the  '  boy,'  young  Dan,  his 
son. 

Then  follows  the  weakest  part  of  the  story, 
for  Harvey  seems  transformed  by  that  blow  on 
the  nose,  casts  off  at  once  his  selfishness  and 
ill-natured  precocity,  and  becomes  the  best 
of  good  fellows.  We  are  given  to  understand 
that  he  always  was  this  at  bottom,  but  that 
he  had  been  spoiled  by  the  injudicious  treat- 

159 


RUDYARD    KIPLING 

ment  of  his  mother.  That  is  quite  possible,  but 
it  is  scarcely  credible  that  the  evil  qualities 
of  years  of  mismanagement  and  indulgence 
should  so  quickly  remove  under  the  influence 
even  of  such  fine  characters  as  the  crew  of  the 
We're  Here. 

They  are  splendid  people  one  and  all,  from 
stern  Disco  Troop  to  his  merry  son  Dan. 
Even  Uncle  Salters,  the  farmer  and  booby  of 
the  crew,  is  lovable.  Most  charming  of  all  is 
Manuel,  the  "  Portugee,"  whose  dory  rescued 
Harvey.  When  work  was  finished  for  the  day, 
and  they  sat  round  the  cabin, 

Manuel's  talk  was  slow  and  gentle — all  about  pretty 
girls  in  Madeira  washing  clothes  in  the  dry  beds  of 
streams,  by  moonlight,  under  waving  bananas  ; 
legends  of  saints,  and  tales  of  queer  dances  or  fights 
away  in  the  cold  Newfoundland  baiting-ports. 

The  accounts  of  the  fishing  from  dories,  of 
the  salting  and  packing  of  the  cod,  of  the 
habits  and  customs  of  the  sailors,  suggest  that 
Mr.  Kipling,  during  the  years  he  spent  in  the 
United  States,  served  his  time  on  one  of  these 
smacks.  That  does  not  mean  that  there  is 
anything  pedantic  in  the  tale — far  from  it.  It 
is  a  splendid,  realistic  story  of  a  splendid  race 
of  men. 

When  the  We're  Here  with  Harvey  aboard 
has  finally  reached  port,  there  is  an  account 

160 


NOVELS 

of  his  father's  dash  across  America  to  meet 
him,  with  all  the  detail  and  all  the  sheer  love 
of  speed  that  Mr.  Kipling  puts  into  his  stories 
of  the  railway. 

Captains  Courageous,  better  than  The  Light 
that  Failed,  far  better  than  The  Naulakha,  is 
yet  not  to  be  mentioned  in  the  same  breath  as 
Kim.  The  publication  of  Kiin  marks  in  some 
respects  the  highest  point  of  Mr.  Kipling's 
career.  Many  of  his  best  books  were  published 
before  he  had  reached  his  full  fame.  He  was 
now,  at  the  beginning  of  the  new  century,  in 
the  sun  of  his  highest  popularity.  His  stories 
and  his  poems  were  read  everywhere  and 
everywhere  quoted.  Yet  his  complete  novels 
had  not  borne  out  the  promise  of  his  other 
work.  Malicious  critics  had  labelled  The  Light 
that  Failed  '  The  Book  that  Failed,'  and  I 
have  given  my  reasons  for  holding  that  they 
were  not  altogether  wrong.  It  had  been  said 
that  he  could  not  write  a  great  novel,  and  Kim 
seemed  to  some  the  proof  of  a  deliberately 
accepted  challenge.  If  that  were  so,  his 
confidence  was  triumphantly  vindicated. 

As  compared  with  The  Light  that  Failed, 
the  whole  book  is  elaborate.  Here  are  no 
hasty,  impressionist  sketches,  but  careful, 
loving  full-length  portraits.  Kim  himself,  his 
saintly  lama,  the  delightful  Hurree  Chiuider 
L  161 


RUDYARD    KIPLING 

Mookerjee,  Mahbub  AH,  the  old  princess,  even 
the  lesser  characters  like  Lurgan  and  Colonel 
Creighton,  are  people  whom,  looking  back  on 
the  book,  we  seem  to  have  known.  And 
nowhere  has  Mr.  Kipling  been  so  successful  in 
creating  for  us  the  atmosphere  of  the  East,  its 
silence  and  its  cruelty  and  its  mystery,  the 
smells  of  the  bazaars,  the  colours  and  the 
glare,  the  heat  and  the  flies,  the  sweetmeats 
^-^  and  the  dust. 

Kim  is  a  tale  of  the  Secret  Service  of  India, 
which  is  itself  probably  in  no  way  a  thing  of 
the  author's  imagination,  however  much  he 
may  have  embellished  it  for  the  purposes  of 
his  story.  Kim  is  a  little  Avhite  boy  stranded 
and  alone  in  India,  son  of  an  Irish  private 
who  died  of  drink  and  opium.  His  only  friend 
is  one  Mahbub  Ali,  a  swaggering,  rakish 
Afghan  horse-dealer,  who  is  one  of  the  most 
trusted  players  of  "  The  Game,"  as  the  work 
of  the  Secret  Service  is  called.  Kim  first 
takes  a  hand  in  the  Game  by  conveying  to 
Colonel  Creighton,  the  head  of  the  service,  a 
note  that  Mahbub  is  anxious  to  be  rid  of,  since 
it  threatens  his  life.  When  he  has  delivered 
it  he  lies  outside  the  house,  as  the  native  chil- 
dren among  whom  he  has  lived  would  have 
done,  and  overhears  plans  for  putting  down  a 
rising  in  the  north  which  the  letter  forebodes. 

162 


NOVELS 

Meantime  Kim  has  made  the  acquaintance 
of  a  wonderful  Thibetan  lama  outside  the 
"  Wonder  House  "  at  Lahore — the  Museum 
of  which  Mr.  Lockwood  Kipling  was  Curator 
— and  has  become  his  chela  or  disciple.  The 
lama  is  on  a  quest,  the  quest  of  a  river  that 
sprang  from  the  arrow  of  Gaudama  when  he 
excelled  all  that  strove  against  him  in  shooting. 
Kim  is  neither  convinced  nor  sceptical ;  India 
is  full  of  priests  and  every  one  has  a  quest  of 
some  sort.  This  one  he  loves,  so  he  decides  to 
accompany  him.  Together  they  take  the 
road,  Kim  begging  for  his  master  according  to 
the  custom,  and  owing  to  his  skill  and  im- 
pudence they  live  well. 

The  description  of  the  Grand  Trunk  Road 
is  one  of  the  most  marvellous  passages  in 
Mr.  Kipling's  works.  He  is  perhaps,  less 
concise,  less  determined  to  spare  every  word 
that  he  can  do  without  than  is  his  wont.  He 
paints  his  picture  in  leisurely  fashion  and 
takes  many  pages  to  do  it.  It  were  of  little 
use  to  quote  anything  from  the  description  if 
one  did  not  quote  nigh  all,  which  is  of  course 
impossible.  That  description  is  an  answer  to 
the  cry  that  the  world  has  become  in  every 
corner  a  sober  and  monotonous  place.  We 
feel  as  we  read  Kim's  own  delight  in  that  scene 
of  ten  thousand  shifting  bright-garbed  actors. 

163 


RUDYARD    KIPLING 

Presently  they  fall  in  with  the  train  of  an 
old  princess,  returning  to  her  native  hills 
after  a  visit  to  her  daughter.  Kim  manages 
discreetly  to  bring  himself  and  his  master  to 
her  notice  and  into  a  favour  that  serves  them 
well  in  later  days.  The  witty,  foul-tongued, 
rusee  dame  is  altogether  delightful,  one  of  the 
most  humorous  characters  Mr.  Kipling  has 
created. 

All  this  time  Kim  has  been  prophesying  a 
great  war  "  with  guns,"  telling  of  the  exact 
number  of  men  who  will  be  engaged,  exactly 
as  he  heard  it  from  the  lips  of  Colonel  Creighton. 
In  India,  apparently,  fame  comes  from  glib 
prophecy  even  before  it  is  fulfilled,  and  Kim 
is  considered  a  prodigy.  When,  later,  the 
prophecy  is  fulfilled,  and  the  exact  force  he 
has  named  is  sent  forward,  he  is  not  far  short 
of  a  god. 

Kim  is  eventually  captured  by  his  father's 
old  regiment,  straying  near  to  it  in  curiosity 
when  he  sees  its  badge,  a  red  bull  on  a  green 
field.  The  Indian  woman  who  had  lived  with 
O'Hara  his  father  had  told  him  after  the  latter's 
death  that  "  nine  hundred  first-class  devils, 
whose  god  was  a  Red  Bull  on  a  green  field, 
would  attend  to  Kim,"  which  was  all  she  could 
remember  of  the  man's  rambling  directions. 
Instantly  the  chaplains  of  the  regiment  decide 

164 


NOVELS 

that  he  must  be  sent  to  school,  and  the  old 
lama  offers  to  pay  his  expenses  so  that  he 
may  go  to  a  first-class  school  instead  of 
learning  with  the  drummer-boys.  So  Kim 
finds  himself  at  one  of  the  great  Roman 
Catholic  schools  of  India  where  the  sons  of 
English  officials  and  of  the  richer  "  half- 
sahibs  "  are  educated.  There  he  abides  some 
years,  varying  work  with  delightful  holiday 
trips  in  native  costume  with  the  lama,  who 
yet  continues  his  quest.  But  those  mighty 
players  of  the  Game,  Colonel  Creighton  and 
Mahbub  Ali,  have  marked  an  apt  pupil,  and 
are  determined  that  he  shall  not  slip  through 
their  fingers.  Kim  is  sent  to  the  house  of 
Lurgan,  "  the  Healer  of  Sick  Pearls,"  to  receive 
his  training. 

Here  he  is  taught  scientifically  to  observe 
and  memorize  the  slightest  details  of  costume, 
of  colour,  of  speech  that  are  presented  to  him, 
to  scorn  all  the  most  mysterious  forms  of  fear, 
to  wear  a  dozen  different  disguises  and  to 
assume  with  each  the  language,  the  bearing, 
the  manner  of  walking  and  sitting  and  sleeping 
of  the  race  or  caste  he  represents.  He  comes 
through  all  his  tests,  gains  the  approval  of  the 
Babu  Hurree  Chunder  Mookerjee,  one  of  the 
very  best  players  of  the  Game,  and  is  sent 
forth.     He  is  at  first  given  no  direct  duties, 

165 


RUDYARD    KIPLING 

but  is  to  serve  his  apprenticeship  to  the  Road 
by  following  the  lama  upon  his  quest. 

Then  follow  countless  adventures,  of  which 
the  old  lama  is  of  course  kept  ignorant.  If  an 
objection  can  be  made  against  this  part  of  the 
story,  it  is  on  the  ground  that,  in  such  a  vast 
beehive  as  India,  some  of  Kim's  meetings  with 
old  friends  and  foes  stretch  coincidence  rather 
far.  This  can  be  forgiven  for  the  sake  of  the 
thrilling  vista  of  intrigue,  of  stealthy  plot  and 
more  cunning  counter-plot,  which  now  opens 
before  us.  Kim  performs  one  great  feat  in 
disguising  a  Mahratta  fellow-worker,  who  is 
fleeing  from  his  foes.  He  has  been  marked  so 
that  he  will  be  known  when  the  train  in  which 
he  travels  reaches  its  destination,  where  he 
will  be  arrested  on  a  charge  of  murder,  the 
corpse  and  a  dozen  witnesses  ready  to  swear 
they  saw  the  act  being  all  prepared.  Kim 
changes  him  to  the  likeness  of  a  fakir,  and 
enables  him  to  elude  the  police,  gaining  great 
credit  for  his  resource.  Finally  he  aids  Hurree 
Chunder  to  trick  two  Russian  spies,  to  steal 
their  papers  and  break  up  their  camp. 

After  long  wanderings  the  saintly  old  lama 
ends  his  quest  in  a  fashion  in  which  pathos  and 
humour  are  equally  blended.  He  sees  a  canal, 
which  to  his  half-blind  eyes  bears  all  the  signs 
of  his  river,  falls  into  it,  and  is  with  difficulty 

166 


NOVELS 

saved  from  drowning  by  Hurree  Babu.  His  days 
come  to  an  end  at  the  hill-castle  of  the  old  prin- 
cess, who  loves  him  and  his  disciple  very  dearly. 

Of  all  the  characters  in  this  book  Hurree  is 
the  best.  I  think  that  he  will  share  immor- 
tality with  Mulvaney  if  it  comes  to  any  of 
Mr.  Kipling's  people.  Mr.  Lockwood  Kipling's 
fine  illustrations  have  made  us  familiar  with 
the  huge,  cow-like  figure, 'his  enormous  flabby 
calves  bare  from  the  knee  to  the  tops  of  his 
socks.  He  is,  as  he  is  never  tired  of  asseverating, 
"  a  fearful  man,"  afraid  of  his  own  shadow, 
but  he  has  been  in  "  dam'-tight  places  more 
than  hairs  on  my  head,"  and  come  out  of 
them  with  credit.  He  affects,  like  many  of  his 
class,  to  be  a  free-thinker,  but  he  is  super- 
stitious to  the  last  degree.  He  is  something 
of  an  ethnologist  and  a  student  of  religious 
beliefs.  "  It  is,"  says  Mr.  Kiphng,  "  an  awful 
thing  still  to  dread  the  magic  that  you  con- 
temptuously investigate — to  collect  folk-lore 
for  the  Royal  Society  with  a  lively  belief  in 
all  Powers  of  Darkness." 

Philosophy  is  at  times  a  very  real  aid  to 
him,  however.  When  he  tells  Kim  that  he  is 
about  to  attach  himself  to  the  camp  of  the 
Russian  spies  as  an  interpreter,  to  spy  upon 
them  in  his  turn,  the  latter,  knowing  the  risks 
and  his  natural  cowardice,  is  astonished. 

167 


RUDYARD    KIPLING 

"  Will  they  kill  thee  ?  "  he  asks. 

"  Oah,  thatt  is  nothing,"  says  Hiirree.  "  I  am  good 
enough  Herbert  Spencerian,  I  trust,  to  meet  little 
thing  like  death,  which  is  all  in  my  fate,  you  know." 

Mr.  Kipling  revels  in  the  speech  of  the 
university-trained  Bengalee,  and  its  mixture 
of  slang  and  pomposity.  When  Kim  has 
done  well,  and  Hurree  is  going  to  report  the 
same  to  Colonel  Creighton,  he  says  to  him  : 

"  I  tell  our  mutual  friend  you  take  the  bally 
bun,  by  Jove  !  "  and  when  handing  over  to 
Kim  the  dress  in  which  he  is  to  take  the  road  : 

"  Oho  !  That  is  inconspicuous  dress  of  chela 
attached  to  service  of  lamaistic  lama.  Complete  in 
every  particular,"  said  Hurree  Babu,  rolling  into  the 
balcony  to  clean  his  teeth  at  a  goglet.  "  I  am  of 
opeenion  it  is  not  your  old  gentleman's  precise 
religion,  but  rather  sub-variant  of  same.  I  have  con- 
tributed rejected  notes  to  Asiatic  Quarterly  Review 
on  these  subjects.  Now  it  is  curious  that  the  old 
gentleman  himself  is  totally  devoid  of  religiosity. 
He  is  not  a  dam'  particular." 

The  old  princess  sums  up  her  philosophy  thus  : 

"  I  have  seen  something  of  this  world,  and  there 
are  but  two  sorts  of  women  in  it — ^those  who  take  the 
strength  out  of  a  man  and  those  who  put  it  back. 
Once  I  was  that  one,  and  now  I  am  this." 

The  lama  is  wonderful.  This  saintly  old 
yellow  man  embodies  all  the  qualities  that  in 

168 


NOVELS 

the  East  make  for  holiness, — reverence,  gentle- 
ness, abstention  from  all  interference  in  the 
lives  of  others,  skill  in  the  law  and  philosophy 
of  his  ancient  creed,  the  power  of  prolonged 
silent  prayer  and  ecstasy.  If  he  lacks  some 
of  the  attributes  of  perfect  holiness  as  it  is 
generally  pictured  amongst  us  of  the  West,  we 
can  yet  love  and  understand  him.  He  is  no 
knight  of  God  setting  forth  to  attack  wrong, 
no  valiant  soldier  leading  the  battle  against 
the  legions  of  evil.  But  the  holiness  of  Madame 
de  Guyon  and  of  Fenelon,  the  doctrines  of 
Quietism  which  were  in  effect  those  of  some 
of  the  most  venerated  saints  of  the  Catholic 
Church,  and  notably  of  Saint  Teresa,  are  not 
very  far  from  him.  They  are  an  admirable  anti- 
dote to  what  may  be  termed  the  "  fussy  " 
forms  of  religion  so  prevalent  in  England  to-day, 
.when  attention  to  ashpits  in  mean  streets — 
how  estimable  in  itself ! — is  held  an  effective 
substitute  for  praise  and  prayer. 

As  a  "  detective  story  "  alone,  Kim  stands 
above  any  I  have  read,  but  it  is  far  more  than 
a  detective  story.  It  is  also  the  best  English 
novel  of  Indian  life  that  has  ever  been  written. 
It  roused  in  this  country,  indeed  also  in 
America  and  on  the  Continent,  an  interest  in 
India  and  its  life,  as  opposed  to  the  life  of  its 
English  garrison,  that  not  even  its  author's 

169 


RUDYARD    KIPLING 

short  stories  had  been  able  to  awaken.  It  has 
an  indescribable  fascination ;  one  reads  it 
again  and  again  with  new  delight.  It  has  that 
quality  which  is  the  hall-mark  of  a  great  book 
— it  never  grows  stale. 

It  is  curious  and  to  be  deplored  that  Kim 
should  have  had  no  successor,  that  Mr.  Kipling 
should  since  have  attempted  no  complete 
novel.  It  may  be  that  he  feels  the  critics  to 
be  right,  that  he  is  not  fitted  for  novel-writing, 
that  he  has  exhausted  his  powers  in  that 
respect  by  struggling  on  past  three  very  partial 
successes  to  this  master-stroke.  It  must  indeed 
be  remembered  that  he  has  written  but  little 
of  any  kind  since  its  publication.  If  that 
supposition  be  true,  ours  is  the  misfortune,  and 
it  is  heavy.     , 


170 


IX 

STYLE 

L^Mr.  James  Oliphant,  of  whose  criticism  I 
have  spoken  elsewhere  disparagingly,  has  his 
moments,  and  in  one  of  them  he  says  : 

"  With  Mr.  Kipling  ten  pages  will  go  for 
fifty  pages  of  many  novelists.  Every  sentence, 
every  phrase,  every  word  almost,  tells  its  own 
tale.  If  the  strokes  are  few,  there  is  yet  no 
vagueness  in  the  sketch,  for  every  line  is 
placed  where  it  is  most  significant." 

Compression  is  indeed  one  of  the  most 
striking  characteristics  of  Mr.  Kipling's  style. 
He  makes  use  of  the  short  story,  of  the  short 
paragraph,  of  the  short  sentence.  He  puts 
both  thought  and  description  into  the  narrowest 
possible  space.  Sometimes  he  leaves  us,  as  it 
were,  to  complete  a  story  for  ourselves.  This 
must  always  be  taken  into  account  in  esti- 
mating the  volume  of  his  work.  When  we 
look  at  Mr.  Kipling's  published  work  in  bulk, 
it  seems  large  enough,  but  when  we  come  to 
think  that  there  is  here  what  would  be  for 
another    man    the    bones    and    materials    for 

171 


RUDYARD     KIPLING 

hundreds  of  books,  we  realize  the  vast  strain 
of  production  to  which  he  must  have  put 
himself  in  early  days.  It  is  small  wonder  if 
the  fount  begins  now  to  run  dry. 

The  following  sentence  from  The  Return  of 
Imray  is  a  really  amazing  example  of  compres- 
sion. Speaking  of  Tietjens,  Strickland's  great 
Rampur  hound,  Mr.  Kipling  says  : 

Strickland  owed  his  life  to  her,  when  he  was  on  the 
Frontier,  in  search  of  a  local  murderer,  who  came  in 
the  gray  dawn  to  send  Strickland  much  farther  than 
the  Andaman  Islands. 

In  thirty  words  we  are  not  only  told  in  what 
place  and  circumstances  Strickland  owed  his 
life  to  his  slut,  but  it  is  implied  that  when 
Strickland  caught  the  man  it  would  be  his 
fate  to  be  imprisoned,  probably  for  life,  in  the 
convict  settlement  of  the  Indian  Government 
in  the  Andaman  Islands,  that  the  man  knew 
this,  and  intended  that  Strickland  should  be 
sent  "  much  farther."  That  is  surely  the  limit 
of  possible  compression. 

Of  the  short  sentence  he  is  indubitably  a 
master.  He  loves  to  begin  a  story  or  a  para- 
graph with  a  sentence  of  not  more  than  a 
dozen  words  that  drive  straight  to  the  heart 
of  the  situation.  I  take  the  following  almost 
at  random  from  various  stories  in  Lifers 
Handicap  : 

172 


STYLE 

The  Indus  had  risen  in  flood  without  warning. 

Imray  achieved  the  impossible.  Without  warning, 
for  no  conceivable  motive,  in  his  youth,  at  the  thres- 
hold of  his  career  he  chose  to  disappear  from  the 
world — which  is  to  say,  the  little  Indian  station  where 
he  lived. 

"  Prisoner's  head  did  not  reach  to  the  top  of  the 
dock,"  as  the  English  newspapers  say. 

The  Biblical  sentence  is  as  a  rule — though 
not  always — a  long  sentence,  so  that  it  may 
seem  contradictory  after  extolling  Mr.  Kipling's 
prowess  in  the  management  of  the  short  to 
add  that  he  has  been  greatly  influenced  by 
the  language  of  the  Bible.  But  Mr.  Kipling 
uses  long  sentences  on  occasion,  and  certainly 
in  a  form  that  would  not  have  been  used  had 
there  been  no  English  Bible.  Take  for  example 
this  sentence  from  The  Head  of  the  District  : 

Wherefore  the  Very  Greatest  of  All  the  Viceroys 
took  another  step  in  advance,  and  with  it  counsel  of 
those  who  should  have  advised  him  on  the  appoint- 
ment of  a  successor  to  Yardley-Orde. 

Or  this  passage  from  Without  Benefit  of  Clergy  : 

It  struck  a  pilgrim-gathering  of  half  a  million  at  a 
sacred  shrine.  Many  died  at  the  feet  of  their  god  ; 
the  others  broke  and  ran  over  the  face  of  the  land 
carrying  the  pestilence  with  them.  It  smote  a  walled 
city  and  killed  two  hundred  a  day. 

This  use  of  Old  Testament  language  is 
particularly  assumed  when  Mr.  Kipling  speaks 

173 


y 


RUDYARD    KIPLING 

of  such  things  as  are  common  in  the  Old 
Testament,  the  Goodness  or  the  Wrath  of  God, 
the  greatness  of  a  king's  might,  peace  and 
prosperity  or  war,  famine,  pestilence  and 
death. 

One  of  the  reasons  why  Mr.  Kipling's  com- 
pression seldom  leaves  us  in  doubt  as  to  his 
meaning  is  the  vigour  of  his  phrases.  Another 
is  the  special  significance  that  he  attaches  to 
single  words,  and  the  bold  use  he  makes  of  the 
hyphen.  He  is  never  afraid  to  take  a  word  or 
an  expression  from  vulgar  use,  even  in  a 
passage  of  lofty  tone,  if  it  will  add  force  to  his 
sentence.  M.  Chevrillon  was  very  greatly 
impressed  by  the  power  of  his  phrases,  and 
has  collected  a  great  number  of  them.  A  few 
of  the  following  are  taken  direct  from  him,  the 
rest  struck  my  own  eye  in  perusing  his  works. 

Kaa,  the  rock  python  of  The  Jungle  Book, 
"  seemed  to  pour  himself  along  the  ground.'^'' 

The  sun  is  spoken  of  as  "  driving  broad 
golden  spokes  through  the  lower  branches  of 
the  mango  trees." 

Mulvaney  in  With  the  Main  Guard  relates  : 

"  I  saw  a  sword  lick  out  past  Crook's  ear,  an'  the 
Paythan  was  tuk  in  the  apple  av  his  throat  like  a  pig 
at  Dromeen  Fair." 

In  summer,  through  the  furious  May  heats,  the 
ruhh  reeled  in  the  haze.    {In  the  Rukh.) 

174 


STYLE 

The  lightning  spattered  the  sky  as  a  thrown  egg 
spatters  a  barn-door.    {The  Return  oflmray.) 

Any  regiment  can  advance,  but  few  know  how  to 
retreat  with  a  sting  in  the  tail.    {The  Brushwood  Boy.) 

The  gilt-edged  Purple  Emperor,  the  milHonaires' 
south-bound  express,  laying  the  long  miles  over  his 
shoulder  as  a  man  peels  a  shaving  from  a  soft  hoard. 
{■007.) 

The  steady  wolf's  trot  that  eats  up  the  long  miles 
like  fire.    {The  Jungle  Booh.) 

Dr.  Leeb-Lundberg  has  made  a  careful 
study  of  the  words  used  by  Mr.  Kipling,  but 
he  sometimes  overreaches  himself  in  his 
erudition.  It  is  interesting  to  consider  Mr. 
Kipling's  use  of  the  hyphen  in  such  instances 
as  '  tree  -  land,'  '  capable  -  of  -  ruling  -  men,' 
'  dust-haze,'  '  man -talk,'  but  it  is  utterly  ab- 
surd to  comment  gravely  upon  such  hyphened 
and  compound  words  as  '  tight  -  lipped,' 
*  unprintable,'  '  unproven,'  '  unlover  -  like,' 
'  round  -  eyed,'  any  one  of  which  could  be 
found  in  a  thousand  books  by  the  most  con- 
servative authors.  And  to  put  such  a  word  as 
'  goose  -  rumped  '  under  the  heading  '  Trans- 
ferred Meaning  '  betrays  sheer  ignorance  of  the 
language.  Dr.  Leeb-Lundberg  has  certainly 
never  discussed  the  points  of  an  Irish  hunter. 

Mr.  Kipling  has  that  power,  given  to  but  a 
few,  of  imparting  by  means  of  a  single  word  a 
peculiar  form  and  significance  to  his  sentence, 

175 


RUDYARD    KIPLING 

so  that  there  are  certain  sentences  which  if 
read  aloud  to  any  who  knew  the  rest  of  his 
work  would  be  instantly  recognized.  I  can 
think  of  no  author  of  recent  years  to  whom 
this  applies  so  strongly  as  to  him  except 
George  Borrow.  I  give  the  following  instances 
of  that  "  extra  word  "  that  makes  magic  of  a 
whole  sentence  : 

Mahbub  All,  whose  caravans  penetrated  far  and 
far  into  the  Back  of  Beyond.    {Kim.) 

So  did  the  scar  of  the  stake  burn  on  my  hide  till  we 
watched  their  villages  die  under  in  the  spring  growth. 
{The  Second  Jungle  Book.) 

It  was  a  slope  of  gap-hedged  fields  possessed  to  their 
centres  by  clumps  of  brambles.  {An  Habitation 
Enforced.) 

I  shall,  without  attempting  to  emulate  Dr. 
Leeb-Lundberg,  just  mention  Mr.  Kipling's 
frequent  and  effective  use  of  onomatopoeia. 
He  speaks  of  the  '  phut '  of  a  bullet,  the 
'  soft  wheep,  wheep  of  unscabbarded  knives,' 
'  the  indefinite  "  Euh  "  that  runs  through  the 
speech  of  the  pundit  class,'  exemplified  in 
this  case  by  Eustace  Cleever  in  A  Confer- 
ence of  the  Powers.  Snake  hisses  are  vari- 
ously represented  by  the  sounds  '  Kssha  !  ' 
'  Ngssh  !  '  and  others.  A  body  falls  feet  first 
into  water  with  a  '  keen,  clean  schloop.^ 

I  have  mentioned  Mr.  Kipling's  skilful  use 
176 


STYLE 

of  dialect.  It  must  be  admitted  that  he  uses 
bad,  outworn  Irish  jargon  of  the  stage  Irish- 
man. The  '  fwhat,'  '  reshume,'  '  bhoys,' 
'  bekaze,'  become  a  httle  wearisome  after  a 
time.  The  modern  method  of  representing  the 
speech  of  Irish  people  is,  of  course,  to  avoid  all 
eccentricities  of  spelling  as  far  as  possible,  and 
rely  for  effect  on  skilfxil  inversions  and  turns 
of  phrase.  I  do  not  think,  however,  that  it  is 
possible  for  an  Englishman  to  do  this  with 
success.  Let  anyone — be  he  native  or  no — 
who  has  lived  among  Irish  people  compare  Mr. 
Kipling's  Irish  with  the  following  from  one  of 
the  books  of  the  greatest  masters  of  Irish 
dialect  that  have  ever  written,  and  he  will  see 
the  difference  between  the  real  thing  and  the 
able  imitation  : 

"  I  had  a  lovely  coit  one  time  from  that  one's  dam," 
remarked  James  Hefferman,  "  the  grandest  one  ever 
I  bred.  Sure  I  thought  the  world  wasn't  good  enough 
for  him.  And  I  put  him  within  in  the  best  house  I 
had.  Sun,  moon,  nor  stars  didn't  shine  on  him,  nor 
the  breath  of  Heaven  didn't  touch  him  ;  and  after  all 
he  died  on  me  !  I  wouldn't  have  wished  it  for  twenty 
pounds." 

"  You  would  not  indeed,  sir,"  said  Tim,  sympatheti- 
cally. 

"  Well,  that's  the  way  always,"  resumed  James 
Hefferman  in  philosophic  acceptance  of  the  mysterious 
decrees  of  providence.     "  And  look  now  at  this  one, 

M  177 


RUDYARD    KIPLING 

that  I  didn't  lave  hand  nor  foot  to,  only  to  throw  her 
out  on  the  hill  with  the  bullockeens,  she's  as  healthy 
as  a  stone." 

But  the  Misses  Somerville  and  Martin  are 
wizards,  and  I  am  not  at  all  sure  that  the 
dialect  of  Mulvaney  is  not  closer  to  the  talk 
of  the  real  Irishman  than  the  flowery  and 
conventional  language  put  into  his  mouth  by 
Synge  and  Lady  Gregory. 

Mr.  Kipling's  officers'  slang  is  as  good  and 
as  true  as  that  of  the  men.  "  I  can  shove  a 
crock  along  a  bit,"  says  a  character  in  The 
Story  of  the  Gadshys  in  modest  deprecation  of 
his  horsemanship,  and  the  hero  of  The  Brush- 
wood Boy  is  delighted  to  "  snaffle  out  of  the 
campaign  "  a  year's  leave.  Where  he  does  not 
know  he  invents  with  amazing  boldness.  When 
we  hear  the  young  Roman  officer  in  Puck  of 
Book's  Hill  invite  a  friend  to  drink  with  the 
summons  :  "  Come  and  wet  the  Eagles  !  " 
we  are  amused,  but  filled  with  admiration  as 
well.  It  is  so  ingenious  that  we  feel  it  must  be 
true. 

But  if  he  is  always  forceful  and  sometimes 
brutal  in  his  style,  he  has  passages  of  exceeding 
beauty,  phrases  as  flawless  as  those  of  Pater 
or  Gautier.  Those  who  read  him  hastily  or 
carelessly  will  scarce  recognize  the  following  : 

178 


STYLE 

The  smoke-scented  evening,  copper-dun  and  tur- 
quoise across  the  fields.    (Kim.) 

At  this  level  the  lower  clouds  are  laid  out,  all  neatly 
combed  by  the  dry  fingers  of  the  East.  {With  the 
Night  Mail.) 

It  is  noticeable  that  his  most  beautiful 
phrases  are  called  forth  not  by  the  Indian 
scenes  that  have  made  him  famous,  but  by 
the  English  country-side,  particularly  by  the 
visions  of  old  English  country-houses.  In 
another  age  and  other  circumstances  Mr. 
Kipling  might  well  have  been  the  painter  of 
the  leisurely  life  of  manor  and  farm,  meadow 
and  corn-field,  covert-side  and  gun-room, 
village  green  and  bar-parlour.  The  following 
sentences  will  show  that  if  he  has  "  heard  the 
East  a-callin',"  the  voice  of  England  has  been, 
if  not  so  loud,  at  least  as  insistent. 

The  humid  stillness,  heavy  with  the  scent  of  box, 
cloaked  us  deep.  Shears  I  could  hear  where  some 
gardener  was  clipping  ;  a  mumble  of  bees  and  broken 
voices  that  might  have  been  doves.    (They.) 

The  house,  accepting  another  day  at  end,  as  it  had 
accepted  an  hundred  thousand  gone,  seemed  to  settle 
deeper  into  its  rest  among  the  shadows.    (Ibid.) 

Here  they  found  the  ghost  of  a  patch  of  lucerne 
that  had  refused  to  die  ;  there  a  harsh  fallow  sur- 
rendered to  yard-high  thistles  ;  and  here  a  breadth 
of  rampant  kelk  feigning  to  be  lawful  crop.  {An 
Habitation  Enforced.) 

179 


RUDYARD    KIPLING 

Everything  else  was  a  sort  of  thick,  sleepy  stillness 
smelling  of  meadow-sweet  and  dry  grass.  {Puck  of 
Book's  Hill.) 

Georgie  was  looking  at  the  round-bosomed  woods 
beyond  the  home  paddock,  where  the  white  pheasant - 
boxes  were  ranged  ;  and  the  golden  air  was  full  of  a 
hundred  sacred  scents  and  sounds.  {The  Brushwood 
Boy.) 

Mr.  Kipling  in  early  days  must  have  worked 
fast.  His  output  of  work  between  1890  and 
1900  was  very  great  and  very  diversified. 
Yet,  though  the  prose  of  those  days  was  less 
graceful  than  that  of  Kim  and  Actions  and 
Reactions,  it  was  no  less  precise  and  well- 
balanced.  If  a  man  has,  as  Mr.  Knowles  says 
of  Mr.  Kipling,  "the  gift  of  the  inevitable 
word,"  there  is  no  need  for  him  to  search  long 
for  it.  It  is  hard  to  find  anywhere  in  his  work 
any  trace  of  slackness,  any  evidence  of  care- 
lessness where  style  is  concerned.  His  sentences 
never  sag ;  long  or  short  they  are  always 
crisp,  always  under  control,  as  strong  in  the 
conclusion  as  in  the  commencement.  He 
describes  an  Indian  Station  as  he  describes 
the  monkeys  moving  through  the  jungle,  with 
wonderful  brevity,  in  short  ringing  sentences 
that  at  their  best  are  magnificent  and  at  their 
worst  those  of  a  good  journalist  of  the  present 
day  who  has  left  "  journalese "  long  behind. 

180 


STYLE 

The  following  are  good  examples  of  his  powers 
of  description.  The  first  is  from  A  Wayside 
Comedy,  the  second  a  scene  from  The  Jungle 
Book  wherein  Mowgli  is  kidnapped  by  the 
monkeys. 

Kashima  is  bounded  on  all  sides  by  the  rock-tipped 
circle  of  the  Dosehri  hills.  In  Spring,  it  is  ablaze  with 
roses  ;  in  Summer,  the  roses  die  and  the  hot  winds 
blow  from  the  hills  ;  in  Autumn,  the  white  mists 
from  the  jhils  cover  the  place  as  with  water,  and  in 
Winter  the  frosts  nip  everything  young  and  tender 
to  earth  level. 

Then  they  began  their  flight ;  and  the  flight  of  the 
Monkey-People  through  tree-land  is  one  of  the  things 
nobody  can  describe.  They  have  their  regular  roads 
and  cross-roads,  up  hills  and  down  hills,  all  laid  out 
from  seventy  or  a  hundred  feet  above  ground,  and 
by  these  they  can  travel  even  by  night  if  necessary. 
Two  of  the  strongest  monkeys  caught  Mowgli  under 
the  arms  and  swung  off  with  him  through  the  tree- 
tops,  twenty  feet  at  a  bound.  Had  they  been  alone 
they  could  have  gone  twice  as  fast,  but  the  boy's 
weight  held  them  back.  Sick  and  giddy  as  Mowgli 
was,  he  could  not  help  enjoying  the  wild  rush,  though 
the  glimpses  of  earth  far  down  below  frightened  him, 
and  the  terrible  check  and  jerk  at  the  end  of  the  swing 
over  nothing  but  empty  air  brought  his  heart  between 
his  teeth.  His  escort  would  rush  him  up  a  tree  till 
he  felt  the  thinnest  topmost  branches  crackle  and 
bend  under  them,  and  then  with  a  cough  and  a  whoop 
would  fling  themselves  into  the  air  outwards  and 

181 


RUDYARD    KIPLING 

downwards,  and  bring  up,  hanging  by  their  hands  or 
their  feet  to  the  lower  Umbs  of  the  next  tree.  Some- 
times he  could  see  for  miles  and  miles  across  the  still 
green  jungle,  as  a  man  on  the  top  of  a  mast  can  see 
for  miles  across  the  sea,  and  then  the  branches  and 
leaves  would  lash  him  across  the  face,  and  he  and  his 
two  guards  would  be  almost  down  to  earth  again. 
So,  bounding  and  crashing  and  whooping  and  yelling, 
the  whole  tribe  of  the  Bandar-log  swept  along  the  tree 
roads  with  Mowgli  their  prisoner. 

The  first  of  these  passages  I  quoted  chiefly 
for  its  briefness.  Scarcely  any  other  author 
now  writing  could  have  induced  himself  to 
give  s6  short  a  description  of  his  stagery,  even 
though  such  absence  of  detail  is  the  highest 
merit  in  a  short  story.  No  other  would  have 
contrived  to  tell  us  so  much  of  what  life  in  the 
station  was  likely  to  be  all  the  year  round  in 
the  same  space. 

The  other  passage  is  longer  and  more  brilliant. 
It  would  be  impossible  to  call  up  more  vividly 
the  rush  and  sweep,  the  slash  of  the  branches, 
the  whooping  and  the  noise  of  the  monkeys' 
swift  journey  through  the  trees.  It  is  in  such 
swiftly-described  detail  that  Mr.  Kipling  dis- 
plays that  kinship  with  Defoe  that  Sir  J.  M. 
Barrie  has  noted.  He  is  not  a  realist  in  the 
acceptation  of  the  word  to-day,  certainly  not 
a  "  naturalist "  of  the  school  Brunetiere  so 
much  disliked.    He  writes  often  of  ugly  things 

182 


STYLE 

but  never  of  commonplace  things.  But  he 
has  the  reahstic  style  at  its  best ;  by  which  I 
mean  that  his  style  is  such  as  to  give  his 
reader  a  sense  of  the  reality  of  the  things  he 
describes.  And  this  is  true  quite  apart  from 
those  clever  tricks  that  I  have  mentioned,  of 
telling  the  story  in  the  first  person  with 
allusions  to  other  stories  in  which  the  same 
characters  play  a  part,  of  poking  fun  at  him- 
self, as  where  he  says  of  a  wild  boar  :  "  There- 
fore I  wished  to  shoot  him,  in  order  to  produce 
the  tushes  in  after  years,  and  say  that  I  had 
ridden  him  down  in  fair  chase."  All  these 
things  give  a  semblance  of  reality,  but  not  all 
of  them  are  sufficient  to  account  for  the  reality 
that  is  in  Mr.  Kipling's  stories.  There  is, 
besides  them,  an  incommunicable  and  in- 
explicable power  in  his  style. 

In  style  as  well  as  in  matter,  Mr.  Kipling 
ayoided  the  prevailing  tendencies  of  the  age 
in  which  he  began  to  write.  He  can  make  a 
sparkle  with  epigram  and  paradox  now  and 
then,  but  he  never  seeks  to  set  whole  pages 
ablazing.  A  subaltern  in  The  Story  of  the 
Gadsbys  remarks  that  "  Simla's  stiff  with 
Colonels'  daughters,"  which  is  reminiscent  of 
Mr.  Dumby's  remark  as  to  the  number  of  good 
women  in  the  world.  Yet  nothing  could  have 
been  further  removed  than  the  style  of  Wilde's 

183 


RUDYARD     KIPLING 

stories  and  essays  and  those  of  Mr.  Kipling. 
It  is  the  same  with  ornamentation.  The 
passages  I  have  quoted  are  comparatively- 
rare,  Mr.  Kipling  being  for  the  most  part 
content  to  write  vivid,  clean-cut  prose,  without 
much  regard  to  its  beauty  and  adornment.  It 
is,  as  I  have  explained,  as  a  rule  only  when 
dealing  with  subjects  that  seem  to  him 
beautiful — and  I  am  sure  that  the  English 
country-side  is  to  him  the  most  beautiful 
thing  in  the  world — ^that  he  appears  deliber- 
ately to  arrange  and  choose  his  words  with  an 
eye  for  comeliness  as  well  as  for  effectiveness. 

To  sum  up  then,  Mr.  Kipling  is  not  a  master 
of  uniformly  beautiful  prose  such  as — to  take 
widely  different  examples — Addison,  Gold- 
smith, Pater  or  Mr.  Thomas  Hardy,  but  there 
are  to  be  found,  particularly  in  his  later  work, 
passages  of  a  grace  and  charm  that  cannot  be 
surpassed.  Apart  from  this,  he  has  at  his 
command  a  vigour  of  phrase,  a  power  of  com- 
pression, a  mastery  of  the  weighty  short 
sentence,  a  gift  of  "  working  up  "  a  situation 
by  means  of  a  few  deft  touches,  that  set  him 
alone  among  the  writers  of  to-day. 


184 


IMPERIALISM 

The  word  "  Imperialism  "  held  a  few  years 
ago — and  retains  to-day  to  a  considerable 
extent — a  great  glamour  for  Englishmen. 
England  was  slow  in  awakening  to  the  fact 
that  her  colonies,  children  of  her  body,  were 
growing  up,  till  some  of  them,  like  not  too 
well-mannered  maidens  in  their  late  teens  and 
early  twenties,  began  to  proclaim  that  they 
could  no  longer  be  kept  tied  to  the  apron- 
strings  of  an  elderly  and  rather  fussy  mother. 
They  objected  to  being  called  Colonies  at  all. 
One,  the  best-beloved,  called  herself  a 
Dominion  ;  another  could  not  brook  even  the 
slight  hint  of  dependence  this  word  seemed  to 
imply — she  would  be  a  Commonwealth.  Even 
before  these  things  came  about  there  had  been 
men  who  saw  the  danger  in  the  situation. 
Disraeli  did  something  to  amend  it ;  it  was 
left  to  Chamberlain  to  change  it  altogether. 

His  weapons  were  tact,  sympathy,  justice, 
iron  firmness  where  need  was.    The  grumblers 

185 


RUDYARD     KIPLING 

were  converted  into  friendly  daughters, 
managing  their  own  estabhshments,  but  not 
above  coming  to  their  mother  for  advice. 
The  bonds  between  them  were  those  of  senti- 
ment on  England's  side,  sentiment  and  self- 
interest  on  their  own.  Chamberlain  made  a 
great  effort  to  strengthen  those  of  self-interest 
by  means  of  trade  preference,  and  it  was  from 
small  beginnings  of  this  sort  that  the  great 
Tariff  Reform  movement,  that  for  several 
years  completely  dominated  English  politics 
and  obscured  all  other  issues,  sprung.  And 
no  intelligent  observer  can  imagine  that,  if 
for  the  moment  Tariff  Reform  be,  as  Punch 
suggests,  the  neglected  wife  of  the  party  that 
swore  allegiance  to  it,  its  day  is  yet  done. 
^J  But  if  Tariff  Reform  did  not  at  once  "  sweep 
the  country,"  Imperialism  did.  The  name 
and  the  thing  gripped  the  English  people  so 
firmly  that  even  those  who  disliked  the  latter 
intensely  were  forced — if  they  desired  to 
obtain  a  hearing — to  pay  lip  service  to  the 
former.  One  London  Liberal  newspaper  alone 
was  found  with  the  courage  to  attack  Im- 
perialism by  name ;  the  rest  spoke  of 
"  jingoism  "  as  the  enemy  and  advocated  a 
sane  and  healthy  "  Liberal  Imperialism " 
which  they  found  it  not  over-easy  to  define. 
If  the  first  name  that  association  sum- 
186 


IMPERIALISM 

moned  to  the  mind  on  mention  of  the  word 
ImperiaHsm  was  that  of  Joseph  Chamberlain, 
the  second  was  undoubtedly  Rudyard  Kipling. 
Mr.  Kipling  was  not  only  an  Imperialist,  but 
seems  to  have  taken  very  seriously  his  role  of 
Imperialist  leader.  He  made,  for  example, 
about  seven  years  ago,  a  long  tour  in  Canada, 
and  published  in  The  Morning  Post  a  series  of 
papers  entitled  Letters  to  the  Family,  which  i^ 
are  one  of  the  most  notable  contributions  to 
Imperialist  literature  from  the  point  of  view 
of  the  Colonies  that  has  yet  appeared.  He 
took  no  great  part  in  the  Tariff  controversy,  and 
was  wise  to  confine  himself  to  the  great  ideal 
of  Imperial  Federation,  and  not  to  follow 
some  of  the  Unionist  leaders  in  their  some- 
what crude  incursions  into  the  domain  of 
Economics.  I  cannot  but  think  that,  had 
Mr.  Kipling  had  any  close  connection  with  the 
Unionist  organization  or  any  control  over 
Unionist  policy  in  those  years,  there  would 
have  been  less  of  the  sordid  appeal  to  "  make 
the  Foreigner  pay,"  a  closer  realization  on 
Unionist  platforms  and  in  the  Unionist  Press 
of  the  nature  of  international  trade  and  of  the 
fact  that  it  did  not  precisely  mean  that  we 
were  hastening  to  our  ruin  because  our  imports 
exceeded  our  exports  by  so  many  millions  or 
tens  of  millions.    The  equally  sordid  but  more 

187 


RUDYARD     KIPLING 

successful  Radical  parrot-cry,  "  Your  food 
will  cost  you  more !  "  would  have  been 
countered  by  the  honest  reply  :  "  Yes,  your 
food — or  some  small  portions  of  your  food — 
may  cost  you  a  very  little  more.  But  we  hope 
thereby,  at  the  cost  of  whatever  slight  sacrifice 
this  may  entail,  to  knit  closer  the  bonds  of  our 
Empire,  to  strengthen  throughout  the  world 
the  spread  of  Anglo-Saxon  civilization.  We 
hope  also,  by  increasing  and  encouraging  the 
agricultural  population  of  this  country,  to 
check  national  deterioration,  and  so,  by  in- 
creasing our  vigour,  to  increase  also  our 
combative  power  in  the  world's  markets. 
We  believe  that  any  small  sacrifices  made  for 
these  ends  would  be  repaid  twofold." 
\^  I  I  have  said  something  of  Imperialism  in 
/  connection  with  Mr.  Kipling's  poetry.  A 
great  deal  of  this  is  of  course  indirectly  im- 
perialistic, because  it  glorifies  the  strong  men 
on  the  frontiers,  but  there  were  certain  poems 
in  which  Mr.  Kipling  attempted,  and  with  fair 
success,  to  define  the  philosophy  of  British 
y  Imperialism.  A  Song  of  the  English  is  perhaps 
chief  of  these,  and  therein  he  stated  the 
position  occupied  by  the  Colonies  with  reference 
to  England.  It  was  not  perhaps  great  poetry, 
but  at  least  pleasant  poetry,  as  well  as  straight- 
forward and  clear. 

188 


IMPERIALISM 

A  Nation  spoke  to  a  Nation, 

A  Queen  sent  word  to  a  Throne  ; 

Daughter  I  am  in  my  mother's  house, 
But  mistress  in  my  own. 

Then  follow  the  voices  of  all  the  great  centres 
of  English  life  and  thought  and  civilization, 
each  telling  of  its  own  peculiar  features  and 
estate. 

Mr.  Kipling's  Imperialism  is  something  that 
will  be  found  inevitable  from  a  study  of  the 
writer  and  the  man.  Its  roots  are  embedded 
in  just  those  qualities  from  which  spring  his 
most  characteristic  poetry  and  prose.  It 
draws  nourishment  from  his  love  of  action,  his 
love  of  order,  a  delight  in — that  almost  mounts 
to  a  worship  of — speed  and  strength  and 
cleanness  and  energy.  No  man  echoes  more  i 
loudly  the  cry  :  "  My  country,  may  she  be  ; 
always  right !  But — right  or  wrong — my 
country  !  "  He  has  a  bitter  hatred  for  the  \ 
forms  of  Radicalism  displayed  in  the  Sun-T.[ 
day  gutter-paper,  thinly  disguised  in  Private 
Copper  under  the  name  of  "  Jerrold's  Weekly," 
which  would  always  support  a  German  arti- 
san against  an  English  nobleman,  a  negro 
against  a  white  overseer,  a  mutinous  soldier 
against  his  officer ;  which  has  done  its  best  to 
arouse  hatred  of  Russia,  our  great  ally,  because, 
forsooth,  she  is  not  governed  on  a  mock-demo- 

189 


RUDYARD     KIPLING 

cratic  party  system,  such  as  we  bear  with  as 
we  may. 

It  draws  nourishment  also,  we  cannot  doubt, 
from  his  passionate  love  of  England  and  his 

k  ybelief  in  the  English  race  as  a  civilizing  force. 

-J(  The  Bridge  Builders  is  a  paean  of  the  English. 

/  ^A  brilliant  young  engineer  has  built  a  great 
bridge  across  the  Ganges,  all  supported  by  the 
patent  steel  truss  which  bears  his  name.  Just 
as  it  is  complete  comes  a  terrible  storm  and 
flood  ;  the  river  seems  to  rise  in  her  wrath  to 
overwhelm  the  man  who  has  bridled  her  and 
destroy  his  work.  That  night,  in  the  midst 
of  the  storm,  he  hears  the  gods  discussing, 
hears  Mother  Gunga  in  the  form  of  a  crocodile 
bring  her  plaint  before  them,  and  ask  for 
strength  to  sweep  away  this  obstruction  that 
the  cursed  white  man  has  set  up.  Krishna 
tells  her  that  it  is  useless.  "  To-morrow  sees 
them  at  work.  Aye,  if  ye  swept  the  bridge 
out  from  end  to  end  they  would  begin  anew." 
When  he  wakes  he  finds  his  bridge  intact. 
The   White  Man's   Burden  was   written   in 

-^  America,  where  it  created  a  great  sensation. 
There  are  not  wanting  those  who  believe  that 
the  white  man's  burden  is  something  that  he 
puts  upon  the  shoulders  of  the  black  man 
when  he  colonizes  his  lands.  But  if  there  is 
the  country  of  the  Amazon  on  one  side  of  the 

190 


IMPERIALISM 

account — and  that  is  the  domain  of  the  half- 
white  man,  who  has  never  excited  anybody's 
enthusiasm — there  is  India  on  the  other. 
Mr.  KipHng  is  insistent  upon  the  devotion  of 
the  sons  of  England  who  "  serve  and  love  the 
lands  they  rule."  He  says  of  India,  in  On  the 
City  Wall  : 

Year  by  year  England  sends  out  fresh  drafts  for  the 
first  fighting-line  which  is  officially  called  the  Indian 
Civil  Service.  These  die,  or  kill  themselves  by  over- 
work, or  are  worried  to  death  or  broken  in  health  and 
hope  in  order  that  the  land  may  be  protected  from 
death  and  sickness,  famine  and  war,  and  may  eventu- 
ally become  capable  of  standing  alone.  It  will  never 
stand  alone,  but  the  idea  is  a  pretty  one,  and  men  are 
willing  to  die  for  it. 

Mr.  Kipling  does  not  think  that  we  are  near 
that  blessed  day  "  when  war  and  wounds  shall  J^,-^ 
cease."  In  On  the  City  Wall  he  speaks  of  U 
"  that  lying  proverb  which  says  the  Pen  is 
Mightier  than  the  Sword,"  and  certainly,  at 
this  moment,  with  all  Europe  in  hellish  tur- 
moil, it  would  be  stupid  to  deny  that  he  is 
right.  Being  then  jealous  for  English  civiliza- 
tion, believing,  as  he  has  rightly  believed,  that 
there  were  those  who  would  if  they  had  an 
opportunity  drown  that  civilization  in  blood, 
he  has  been  insistent  that  we  should  stand 
ready  to  defend  it.     It  was  during  the  Boer 

191 


RUDYARD     KIPLING 

War,  when  all  the  air  was  full  of  reports  of 
incompetence  in  the  field,  of  untrained  volun- 
teers poured  out  to  South  Africa  who  had  to 
be  set  to  drill  at  Cape  Town  because  it  would 
have  been  murder  to  have  sent  them  to  the 
front,  that  he  burst  out  into  bitter  mockery  of 
our  unpreparedness.  And  indirectly  he  mocked 
at  the  statesmen  who  dared  say  no  word  of  re- 
proach to  the  touchy  democracy  they  courted. 

No  doubt  but   ye  are  the  People — your  throne   is 

above  the  King's. 
Whoso  speaks  in  your  presence  must  say  acceptable 

things ; 
Bowing  the  head  in  worship,   bending  the  knee  in 

fear — 
Bringing  the  word  well-smoothen — such  as  a  King 

should  hear. 

As  we  all  know,  the  words  made  some  im- 
pression, but  no  very  deep  one.  When  the 
war  was  over  we  did  indeed  reform  our  army 
and  strengthen  our  navy.  But  the  former  was 
rather  diminished  than  increased,  and  the 
mass  of  the  nation  forgot  it  for  far  better- 
beloved  heroes,  "the  flannelled  fools  at  the 
wicket  or  the  muddied  oafs  at  the  goals." 

The  great  tide  of  Imperialism,  that  had  for 
so  long  stood  high  in  England,  sank  after  the 
Boer  War.  The  Unionist  Party  was  utterly 
defeated    at    the    polls — for    the    time    being 

192 


IMPERIALISM 

almost  annihilated.     The   minds  of  men,   so 
far  as  they  were  not  occupied  with  the  positions    i-^ 
of  the  Chelsea  and  Manchester  United  Football 
Clubs   in  the  table   of  the   Football   League, 
turned    to    a    consideration    of    social    evils. 
Strikes,    many   of  them   well   justified,    some 
frivolous,  broke  out  all  over  England  ;    there 
were  collisions  with  the  soldiery  which  dimmed 
the  brightness  of  the  new  affection  for  the 
army  that  the  war  had  brought.    For  the  first 
time  since  the  days  of  Reform  and  Chartism 
there  was  a  widely-spread  impatience  with  the 
privileges  of  the  aristocracy,  now  given  over 
with  unlimited  zest  to  its  own  pleasures  and 
allying  itself  more  and  more  closely  with  the 
predatory  forms  of  wealth  represented  by  the 
worst  type  of  Yankee  and  Israelite.    A  clever 
and  brilliantly  successful  campaign  was  carried 
out   against   the   House   of  Lords   under   the 
inspiration  of  Mr.  Lloyd  George.     Many  men 
declared,  with  some  prima  facie  reason,  that 
they  could  not  think  of  Empire  till  they  had 
seen  that  tinker,  tailor,  soldier,  sailor,  apothe- 
cary and  ploughboy  were  properly  fed,  clothed 
and  housed  at  home.     Young  men  of  ninety 
and  veterans  of  nineteen  met  in  debating  clubs 
and  parliaments  all  over  the  country  and  did 
these  things  to  their  own  satisfaction,  incident- 
ally making  England  into  a  republic,  abolishing 
^  193 


RUDYARD     KIPLING 

all  incomes  over  five  hundred  a  year,  and 
selling  the  navy  to  Turkey  to  devote  the 
proceeds  to  a  fund  to  put  an  end  to  war. 

^       In  such  surroundings  arose  a  new  race  of 
readers  who  knew  not  Mr.  Kipling,  and  a  new 
race  of  writers  arose  to  minister  to  them.    Two 
or   three   skilful    novelists    made    names   for 
themselves  with  books  based  upon  the  work 
of  the  French  naturalistic  school,  and  gradually 
a  whole  tribe  of  young  and  intelligent  men  and 
women  divined  that  there  was  an  income  to  be 
made   by   the    exploitation    of  this   form    of 
"  degenerate    Romanticism "    as   M.    Maurras 
called    it.      Many    of   them    equalled,    a    few 
excelled  the  leaders  at  this  game.    The  brothel, 
the  slum,   the  chamber  of  accouchement,   as 
well  as  the  stuffy  parlour  of  a  Midland  town 
and    the    mahogany-horned    dining-room    of 
comfortable  suburbia  became  the  mines  wherein 
the  modern  school  of  novelists  sought  their 

^ /,raw  material. 

There  ensued  undoubtedly  a  considerable 
decline  in  Mr.  Kipling's  popularity,  and  conse- 
quently in  his  power  as  a  national  leader.  It 
was  imagined,  because  he  had  not  roared  so 
loudly  in  slum-scenes  as  some  of  the  younger 
lions,  that  he  lacked  sympathy  for  poverty  and 
affliction,  that  he  was  tainted  by  the  cruel 
doctrine  of  success.    I  believe  that  he  refused 

194 


IMPERIALISM 

to  follow  the  trend  of  popular  literature  because 
he  found  it  dreary  and  inartistic.  And  those 
who  accused  him  of  lack  of  sympathy  for  the 
poor  must  have  forgotten  the  saying  of 
Badalia  Herodsfoot,  the  heroine  of  his  only 
slum  story  :  "  No  more  you  can't  pauperize 
them  as  'asn't  things  to  begin  with.  They're 
bloomin'  well  pauped." 

All  might  have  yet  been  well,  for  all  the 
critics  of  any  standing  were  already  com- 
mitted to  Mr.  Kipling's  praise,  had  he  himself 
been  more  amenable.  But  not  only  did  he 
refuse  to  conform  to  the  new  ideas — he  at- 
tacked them.  Not  only  did  he  attack  the  new 
prophets — lie  laughed  at  them.  Now  laughter 
is  more  deadly  than  chastisement  with  scorpions. 
In  the  criticisms  of  such  "stories  as  Little  Foxes 
we  can  detect  a  note  of  hatred  that  makes 
intelligent  criticism  absolutely  impossible.  Nor 
is  this  wonderful,  for  no  man  lashes  out  harder 
nor  carries  a  sharper-toothed  whip  than  he„ 
Mr.  Groombride  sits  to  this  day  on  the  gre^n 
benches  at  Westminster,  and  he  never  for- 
gets. 

In  the  story  it  is  related  how  an  early 
Governor  of  "  Ethiopia "  starts  a  pack  of 
hounds,  and  hunts  foxes  along  the  banks  of 
Ethiopia's  great  river  and  the  irrigating  canals 
flowing  from  it.    He  ordains  that  each  man  on 

195 


RUDYARD    KIPLING 

whose  land  earths  are  left  unstopped  shall 
receive  a  certain  number  of  strokes  with  his 
crop,  and  that  special  privileges  shall  be 
granted  to  those  on  whose  land  a  fox  is  found. 
The  whole  population  takes  an  intense  interest 
in  the  pack,  which  gradually  comes  to  be 
bound  up  in  their  minds  with  the  administra- 
tion of  justice.  Eventually  the  beatings  be- 
come a  legend,  replaced  by  three  symbolical 
taps  across  the  shoulders  because  the  people 
do  not  believe  that  without  them  justice  is 
really  done.  Meanwhile,  however,  a  youth 
who  has  spent  his  leave  collecting  hounds  for 
the  sake  of  fresh  blood  speaks  of  the  beatings 
to  a  Liberal  M.P.,  who  demands  further  in- 
formation as  to  this  famous  pack.  In  a  spirit 
of  mischief  the  young  man  tells  him  of  dreadful 
atrocities,  bastinadoes  which  result  in  the  foot 
being  amputated  at  the  ankle.  The  victims 
are,  he  says,  known  as  the  "  Mudir's  Cranes," 
and  to  complete  the  absurdity  he  gives,  as  the 
Ethiopian  translation  of  this  expression,  a 
word  so  foul  that  its  use  is  almost  a  defile- 
ment. 

Mr.  Groombride  writes  down  the  story  and 
the  word,  and  when  his  party  comes  into 
power  remembers  them.  The  Governor  sud- 
denly receives  an  intimation  that  he  is  arriving, 
and  that  all  facilities  for  intercourse  with  the 

196 


IMPERIALISM 

populace  are  to  be  given  to  him.  The  despatch 
is  couched  in  the  most  insolent  and  over- 
bearing terms,  and  the  Governor  is  naturally 
somewhat  annoyed  at  the  prospect  of  Mr. 
Groombride  preaching  the  wildest  sedition  to 
the  people  for  whom  he  is  responsible.  How- 
ever, he  makes  the  best  of  things,  and  manages 
to  convey  a  hint  to  the  people  that  the 
wanderer  is  mad.  Mr.  Groombride,  accom- 
panied by  his  servant  Abdul  with  a  large 
umbrella,  primed  with  a  speech  in  the  native 
language  learned  by  heart,  sallies  forth.  He 
is  mocked  by  the  people  and  his  interpreter, 
and  imagines  that  he  is  being  praised  when  he 
is  being  laughed  at.  Finally  he  delivers  his 
speech.  After  telling  of  the  speedy  righting 
of  the  cruel  wrongs  which  they  endure,  he 
comes  to  the  chief  point. 

"  Would,  then,  his  brethren,  whom  he  loved,  show 
him  a  Mudir's  Crane  whom  he  desired  to  love  ?  " 

Once,  twice  and  again  in  his  peroration  he  repeated 
his  demand,  using  always — ^that  they  might  see  he 
was  acquainted  with  their  local  argot — using  always, 
I  say,  the  word  which  the  Inspector  had  given  him  in 
England  long  ago — the  short  adhesive  word  which, 
by  itself,  surprises  even  unblushing  Ethiopia. 

There  are  limits  to  the  sublime  politeness  of  an 
ancient  people.  A  bulky,  blue -chinned  man  in  white 
clothes,  his  name  red-lettered  across  his  lower  shirt- 
front,  spluttering  from  under  a  green-lined  umbrella 

197 


RUDYARD    KIPLING 

almost  tearful  appeals  to  be  introduced  to  the 
Unintroducible  ;  naming  loudly  the  Unnameable  ; 
dancing,  as  it  seemed,  in  perverse  joy  at  mere  mention 
of  the  Unmentionable — found  those  limits.  There 
was  a  moment's  hush,  and  then  such  mirth  as  Gihon 
through  his  centuries  had  never  heard — a  roar  like 
to  the  roar  of  his  own  cataracts  in  flood.  Children 
cast  themselves  on  the  ground,  and  rolled  back  and 
forth  cheering  and  whooping ;  strong  men,  their 
faces  hidden  in  their  clothes,  swayed  in  silence,  till 
the  agony  became  insupportable,  and  they  threw  up 
their  heads  and  bayed  at  the  sun  ;  women,  mothers 
and  virgins,  shrilled  shriek  upon  mounting  shriek, 
and  slapped  their  thighs  as  it  might  have  been  the 
roll  of  musketry.  When  they  tried  to  draw  breath, 
some  half-strangled  voice  would  quack  out  the  word, 
and  the  riot  began  afresh.  Last  to  fall  was  the 
city -trained  Abdul.  He  held  on  to  the  edge  of 
apoplexy,  then  collapsed,  throwing  the  umbrella 
from  him. 

Mr.  Groombride  should  not  be  judged  too  harshly. 
Exercise  and  strong  emotion  under  a  hot  sun,  the 
shock  of  public  ingratitude,  for  the  moment  ruffled 
his  spirit.  He  furled  the  umbrella,  and  with  it  beat 
the  prostrate  Abdul,  crying  out  that  he  had  been 
betrayed. 

In  which  posture  the  Inspector,  on  horseback, 
followed  by  the  Governor,  suddenly  found  him. 

Is  it  to  be  wondered  at  if  Mr.  Groombride, 
when  he  comes  to  review  a  book  of  Mr.  Kipling's 
for  the  journal  honoured  by  his  distinguished 
contributions  and  the  magic  "  M.P."  after  his 

198 


IMPERIALISM 

name,  finds  him  lacking  in  sympathy  and 
descriptive  power  ?  One  gentleman  who  has 
won  some  notice  both  as  a  politician  and  as  a 
literary  critic,  while  allowing  him  "  flashes  of 
higher  inspiration  and  aspiration,"  speaks  of 
his  "  underbred  and  brawling  imperiahsm," 
and  adds  that  his  work  is  "  beyond  the  pale  of 
great  art."  This  is  not  ignorance,  as  it  might 
seem,  for  the  gentleman  in  question  has  some 
conception  of  great  art,  and  knows  that  many 
of  Mr.  Kipling's  short  stories  stand  with  the 
greatest  ever  written.  Nothing  but  the  bitter- 
est, most  blinding  malice  could  account  for 
such  statements  by  a  man  not  altogether  a 
fool. 

Lord  Hugh  Cecil  has  told  us  that  the  three  ^' 
sentiments  that  make  a  modern  Conservative 
are,  firstly,  conservatism  with  a  small  c,  a  love 
of  old  and  tried  things,  of  order  and  symmetry  ; 
secondly,  that  love  of  Church  and  King,  that 
mystic  attachment  to  the  Sovran  and  the 
national  Church  that  marked  the  Cavaliers 
and  may  be  called  the  beginning  of  Toryism  ; 
and,  thirdly,  that  Imperialism  that  I  have 
striven  to  define.  Some  people  have  some  of 
these  qualities,  and  lack  in  others.  Mr.  Glad- 
stone, for  example,  had  not  a  trace  of  Im- 
perialism in  his  composition,  yet  was  a  very 
fair   Tory   in   his   devotion   to   the   Anglican 

199 


RUDYARD    KIPLING 

Church  and  his  care  for  the  privileges  of  the 
Crown.  Mr.  KipHng  is  a  complete  Conservative, 
though  he  would  not  always  have  deserved 
the  title.  In  earlier  years  it  seemed  that  he 
had  only,  of  the  three  concomitants.  Im- 
perialism. Living,  as  he  did,  in  India,  and 
later  in  the  United  States,  travelling  constantly 
to  and  fro  from  one  thriving  colony  to  another, 
he  was  filled  with  some  impatience  of  the  ease 
and  arrogance  of  "  a  sheltered  people,"  vastly 
well  pleased  with  itself  and  its  way  of  life.  He 
saw  in  the  new  lands  he  visited,  many  good 
things  that  we  were  without  at  home,  that  we 
could  have  acquired,  but  that  in  sheer  haughty 
ignorance  we  rejected.  He  has  grown  no  less 
contemptuous  of  our  failings  and  slackness, 
but  he  has  come  to  love  the  good  things  of  our 
civilization  more  dearly.  Later  stories,  since 
he  has  resided  in  England,  have  shown  more 
and  more  clearly  his  passionate  love  for  the 
old,  unchanging — or  at  least  scarcely  changed 
— life  and  customs  of  the  English  village.  That 
feeling  that  M.  Barres  has  expressed  with  such 
marvellous  eloquence  as  regards  France,  has 
come  to  him  as  regards  England.  We  are 
part  of  the  earth  of  England,  and  England 
*'  is  not  any  common  earth."  It  claims  us 
and  holds  us  because  it  is  pervaded  with  the 
bodies  of  countless  generations  of  Englishmen, 

200 


IMPERIALISM 

as  the  atmosphere  about  is  heavy  with  their 
souls. 

Mr.  Rupert  Brooke,  in  some  brilliant  studies 
of  Western  America,  declares  that,  as  the 
curtain  of  dusk  slips  gently  down  upon  the 
masses  of  the  Rocky  Mountains,  amid  some 
of  the  most  splendid  scenery  in  the  world, 
there  is  no  sense  of  awe.  One  does  not  feel  that 
these  wilds  are  haunted,  that  they  are,  as  we 
feel  of  scenes  at  home,  packed  thick  with  the 
spirits  of  the  dead  who  have  looked  upon  them. 
One  fears  no  ghost ;  for  there  are  no  ghosts  to 
fear.  The  trees  that  rustle  softly,  the  breezes 
that  whisper  down  the  gorges,  carry  no  plaint 
of  souls  departed.  The  beautiful  land  is 
barren  of  hidden  life,  barren  of  mystery. 
With  us  it  is  the  contrary.  When  we  look 
upon  Stonehenge,  when  we  stand  on  a  high- 
piled  barrow  where  Dane  and  Saxon  lie 
together,  when  we  land  at  evening  on  an 
island  in  some  Irish  lake  and  see  the  ruins  of 
a  tower  built  long  before  the  Folk  Wandering 
had  brought  those  Danes  and  Saxons  to 
Western  Europe,  then  we  feel  that  we  do  not 
stand  alone.  We  are  not,  we  cannot  be, 
independent  of  those  that  have  gone  before 
and  of  those  that  follow  after.  We  are  tiny 
links  in  an  immeasurable  chain. 

That  is  why  the  English  and  Irish  and 
201 


RUDYARD    KIPLING 

Scottish  men  who  dwell  on  the  land — the  first 
above  all  —  are  Conservative  in  truth  and  in 
fact,  whatever  may  be  the  passing  political 
creed  they  profess.  That  is  why  we  have  a 
sense  of  permanence  such  as  is  not  possible 
in  a  new  country.  The  estate  carpenter  of 
An  Habitation  Enforced  insists  that  the 
American  couple  who  have  bought  the  land 
of  the  wife's  ancestors  and  settled  down  shall 
have  their  farm  bridge  built  of  oak  rather  than 
larch.  Larch  is  well  enough,  but  if  it  were 
used  their  infant  son  would  "  no  sooner  be 
married  than  we'll  'ave  it  all  to  do  again." 
That  carpenter  is  the  true  type  of  English 
.Conservative,  and  he  is  a  type  that  his  creator 
has  grown  more  and  more  to  love. 
S^  The  voice  of  Mr.  Kipling  as  a  national 
leader  has  never  changed  its  message.  He 
would  not  shout  with  the  crowd,  so  the  crowd 
has  for  a  time  refused  to  follow  him.  But  he 
is  so  very  much  an  Englishman,  has  in  him  so 
deeply  embedded  the  love  of  the  most  typical 
English  traits,  that  the  neglect  of  his  teaching 
will  not  last  long.  If  England  remains  the 
old  England,  and  does  not  become  the  home 
of  cosmopolitanism  and  internationalism,  Mr. 
Kipling  will  always  be  read  as  an  authority  on 
Englishmen.  In  all  probability,  should  his 
years  reach  the  normal  span  of  life,  he  will 

202 


IMPERIALISM 

himself  witness  his  return  to  the  position  of 
national  seer.  In  any  case  he  will  remain  for 
posterity  the  great  fount  of  information  as  to 
the  characters  and  fashion  of  Englishmen, 
soldiers,  sailors,  colonizers  and  administrators, 
in  the  closing  years  of  the  Nineteenth  Century. 


203 


XI 

CONCLUSION 

It  will  be  long  ere  the  final  word  on  Mr.  Kipling 
is  written.  He  is  not,  I  am  firmly  convinced, 
of  yesterday  and  to-day  alone,  but  of  to- 
morrow also  and  still  more  of  the  day  after. 
Mr.  E.  B.  Osborn  has  declared  that  the  sons 
of  the  superior  young  men  who  sneer  at  him 
now  will  be  rediscovering  him  in  twenty  years' 
time.  There  are  of  course  precedents  for  this 
sequence  of  intense  popularity,  comparative 
neglect,  and  renewed  lustre.  Coventry  Pat- 
more  has  been  subjected  to  like  treatment, 
though  it  must  be  remembered  that  Mr. 
Kipling's  books  have  continued  to  sell  in  vast 
numbers  all  through  the  blackest  period, 
while  Patmore  was  no  more  than  a  name  for 
twenty  years  or  more.  I  should  not  be  sur- 
prised if  the  change  came  sooner  than  Mr. 
Osborn  has  prophesied.  I  believe,  in  fact, 
that  it  is  even  now  on  its  way. 

The  day  of  naturalistic  literature  is  not  yet 
over,  but  must  be  well-nigh  done.  Its  gray 
tide  is  still  bleak  and  high,  but  it  has  receded 

204 


CONCLUSION 

a   little,   and   a  few   rare   and   shining   shells 
gleam  in  patches  it  has  left  bare.     The  Crock 
of  Gold  was  a  book  that  may  mark  an  epoch. 
At  a  bound  we  went  back  to  the  beauty  and 
charm  and  delicious  fantasy  of  the  old  French 
faery-tales,   if   not  to    something  better  still. 
Mr.  James  Stephens  is  very  far  removed  from 
Mr.    Kipling,    but    they    have    one    thing    in 
common.    They  are  both  essentially  Romantics,  i  ^ 
both    Idealists,    both,    in    Nietzsche's    jargon,  i 
'  Dionysians  '  in  contrast  to  the  "  theoretical  ; 
men  "  who  have  for  so  long  dominated  English   ' 
letters.    Like  the  English  and  French  allies  in 
conflict    with    the    Teuton    array,    they    are 
different — perhaps     even     unsympathetic — in   } 
temperament,  but  they  fight  the  same  battle.    1 
When  one  drives  back  the  foe,  the  other  also    1 
can  mend  his  position. 

I  have  striven  to  show  that  the  temporary 
falling-off  in  Mr.  Kipling's  popularity  is  due 
merely  to  a  temporary  change  of  fashion.  It 
is  indeed,  a  falling-off  rather  in  the  estimation 
of  critics  than  in  that  of  the  reading  public, 
for,  as  I  have  said,  his  sales  have  always  been 
vast,  to  be  measured  in  the  case  of  each  book 
by  the  ten  thousand.  I  say  this  because  I 
believe  he  has  qualities  that  make  for  per- 
manence. He  will  not  be  remembered,  I  have 
suggested,  as  a  great  poet,  at  least  he  will  not 

205 


RUDYARD    KIPLING 

take  his  place  among  the  dozen  great  poets  of 
England.  But  he  will  be  remembered  as  a 
poet  sometimes  great,  with  a  mastery  of  the 
technique  of  his  art,  with  occasional  flashes  of 
magnificent  power,  as  in  The  Sea  and  the  Hills  ; 
with  an  admirable  gift  of  transmuting  into  real 
poetry  the  dialect  of  the  Cockney  and  the 
slang  of  the  camp,  as  in  the  Barrack-Room 
Ballads  ;  with  a  curiosa  felicitas  in  the  blending 
of  the  beautiful  and  the  simple,  as  in  The 
Recall  and  other  poems  I  have  quoted ;  and  a 
wonderful  cleverness  in  the  fashioning  of 
graceful  and  witty  vers  de  societe,  as  in  the 
Departmental  Ditties.  There  are  many  poets 
who  have  made  and  have  retained  a  con- 
siderable name  who  will  be  found,  if  their 
work  be  fairly  examined  and  appraised,  to 
have  accomplished  much  less. 

But,  while  many  of  his  poems  will,  so  far  as 
I  can  judge,  remain  notable  as  long  as  English 
is  read,  it  will  not  be  upon  his  poetry  that  his 
chief  est  fame  will  rest.  We  bandy  about 
lightly  enough  the  adjective  "  great."  There 
is  but  one  English  novelist  now  alive  who  is 
great  beyond  all  manner  of  doubt,  and  one 
American  to  whom  we  may  with  slightly  less 
certainty  apply  the  title.  Mr.  Kipling  I  do 
not  call  a  great  novelist  in  the  same  sense  as 
Mr.  Hardy  and  Mr.  James,  though  he  is  the 

206 


CONCLUSION 

author  of  one  book,  Kim,  that  is  a  great  novel. 
But  I  do  declare,  and  will  maintain  in  face  of 
all  the  "  high-brows  "  that  ever  sneered,  that 
he  is  a  great  writer  of  short  stories.  I  will  add 
that  he  is  one  of  the  greatest  writers  of  short 
stories  that  has  ever  lived.  A  short  story  does 
not  call  for  precisely  the  same  qualities  as  a 
novel,  and  there  never  was  a  man  better 
endowed  with  the  qualities  needed  for  almost 
every  type  of  short  story  than  Mr.  Kipling. 

He  is,  to  begin  with,  a  master  of  pathos,  not 
of  the   slowly   worked-up,    morbid   pathos   of"^ 
Dickens,   but   of  pathos   swift,   clean-cutting, 
poignant.     He  is   a  master  of  true   tragedy,  | 
which  is  the  conflict  of  man  and  his  inexorable  f 
fate.    He  is  a  master  of  "  blood  and  thunder," 
not    sheer   melodrama — though    he    uses    this 
too  when  he  wills— but  the  roar  and  terror  of 
the  clamorous  battle.     He  has  the  secret  of 
gripping  the  human  heart  with  fear,  knows,  as 
it  were,  the  soft  places  in  the  compositions  of 
strong   men   whereon   to   lay   his   hand.     No 
writer,  not  Hoffmann,  not  Poe  even,  handles 
the  eerie  and  the  supernatural  more  effectively 
and  more  terribly.     He  is  a  humorist  of  the  - 
highest  order,  not  delicate  but  often'  subtle  ; 
at  his  very  best  when  dealing  with  the  vagaries 
of  some  lovable,  deeply-flawed  character  like 
Mulvaney.     Lastly,  to  make  all  these  things 

207 


RUDYARD    KIPLING 

of  most  effect,  he  has  a  swiftness,  a  concise- 
ness, a  power  of  concentration  that  are  unique. 
His  worst  enemies,  who  dishke  the  material 
of  his  stories,  the  characters  and  their  actions, 
admit  that  he  tells  them  magnificently. 

But,  when  we  have  thoroughly  explored  his 
qualities,  when  we  have  enumerated  and 
analysed  and  criticized,  we  come  always  to 
that  which  anneals  the  whole,  to  that  energy 
which  "  nourishes  and  directs  all  his  art." 
There  is  no  other  writer  of  whom  one  can  read 
"  at  a  sitting  "  so  much  as  of  Mr.  Kipling. 
That  is  because  his  pages  are  aflame  with  an 
energy  that  they  impart  to  the  mind  of  his 
reader.  Dash,  glamour,  spirit,  verve,  ilan — 
we  can  exhaust  our  own  nouns  and  borrow 
from  another  language,  and  yet  not  add  a 
word  too  many.  We  divine  always  as  we  read 
the  presence  of  a  powerful,  domineering  spirit, 
intent  on  its  purposes,  spending  itself  freely 
for  the  things  it  loves,  brutal  to  the  things  it 
hates,  with  more  strength  than  sweetness  and 
more  honour  than  courtesy.  He  is  the  English- 
man with  all  his  qualities  at  their  highest,  as 
his  friendliest  observers — ^let  us  say  the  French 
/of  to-day — see  him.  His  good  man  is  a  man 
>/^(  of  action  ;  his  god  is  a  God  of  action. 

WILLIAM   BRENDOK   AND  SON,   LTD,,    PRINTERS,    PLYMOUTH 


T^'M 


14  DAY  USE 

RETURN  TO  DESK  FROM  WHICH  BORROWED 

LOAN  DEPT. 

This  book  is  due  on  the  last  date  stamped  below,  or 

on  the  date  to  which  renewed. 

Renewed  books  are  subject  to  immediate  recalL 


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General  Librarr 

Uoivetsicy  of  California 

Berkeley 


